Spinto Band

It’s been 3 years since The Spinto Band burst onto the rock world with their infectious indie-pop masterworks on Nice and Nicely Done (Bar-None Records). But it hasn’t been a quiet 3 years. In that period of time, The Spinto Band have expanded their reach throughout the World with releases on Virgin UK, an appearance on Later… With Jools Holland, a performance at Fuji Rock in Japan, tours supporting Rilo Kiley, the Arctic Monkeys, Art Brut, the Strokes, Dr. Dog, and many more, including opening up for the Flaming Lips at SXSW!

After constant touring and the worldwide release of their acclaimed album Nice and Nicely Done, The Spinto Band found themselves eager to record new material. The band took it upon themselves to oversee the assembly of their next album. After half a year of rehearsing, arranging, demoing and perfecting the songs that would sculpt Moonwink, the band personally contacted Producer / Engineer Dave Trumfio (Wilco, Built To Spill, Billy Bragg, Mates of State) and Mixing Engineer Tchad Blake (Tom Waits, Los Lobos, Cibo Matto, Paul Simon). After hearing the band's striking new songs, the two recording veterans were excited to work with the bright young composers, and plans were soon hatched to begin work on the band's second major release.

The band first ventured to North East Los Angeles where they spent five weeks recording with Trumfio in a converted sweatshop. Then, with the fruits of their labor in hand, they traversed the ocean and arrived in a small English village where, amid cow pastures and skid pan racetracks, Tchad Blake lent his sonic expertise to the mixing process. With Moonwink complete The Spinto Band was once again ready to dazzle listeners with their skewed approach to song-craft.

The new recordings fortify The Spinto Band's ability to interlace rich, textured guitars, unconventional orchestration and multiple-part vocal harmonies into exciting new avenues of indie-pop. The music is at once outlandish, kinetic and luminous, while still restrained in a way that pays homage to the classic pop song, bringing to mind a contemporary coagulum of, Bacharach, Beatles, Berlin, and Bowie.

An indie pop group whose electronica-tinged tunes nod to Pavement, Of Montreal, and Field Music, the Spinto Band formed in 1996, spearheaded by Nick Krill, who was inspired to form the band when he came across some song lyrics written by his late grandfather, Roy Spinto. The band's original lineup included Jon Eaton, Albert Birney, brothers Thomas and Sam Hughes, and brothers Jeffrey and Joey Hobson; Birney would eventually leave the group in order to go to art school. Self-releasing seven albums over the course of the next eight years, the Spinto Band was picked up by Bar-None for the release of their eighth album, Nice and Nicely Done, in 2005. The album generated quite a bit of critical buzz, enough so that the album was picked up for re-release on Virgin UK the following year. The next three years found the Spinto Band making high profile appearances on the Jools Holland Show and at the SXSW festival, as well as releasing several singles on EMI and Virgin. The Spinto Band's ninth full-length, Moonwink, was released on Fierce Panda and Park the Van in the fall of 2008. ~ Margaret Reges, All Music Guide