Baby Alpaca debuted their latest single "Wild Child" today - check it out below!
When trying to identify the music made by NYC band Baby Alpaca, it's perhaps easier to try and figure out what the music is NOT. Judging by the music on the band's first proper EP, it's easy to say that this is definitely not your standard indie rock fare: an autoharp is involved, as well as both live and programmed beats and a smattering of guitars. The music eschews any musical tropes typically assigned to wispy bedroom electronica, beardy folk music, or the new wave of alternative R&B, but it could perhaps exist as a distant cousin to all of those things. Buoyed aloft by the winsome vocals of front man Chris Kittrell and shaped by the guitar styling of Zach McMillan, Baby Alpaca make music that is both romantic, vaguely tropical, and sufficiently futuristic-music that seems born of a million dramatic road trips that might provide a suitable soundtrack for a million more.
The four songs on the Baby Alpaca EP make for a striking, remarkably blissed-out statement of intent. The EP's first single, "Sea of Dreams" (whose Dada-esque video premiered earlier this year via NPR.org) is as fitting an introduction as any band could hope to have: all echo-chamber vocals that seem to be haunted by reverby guitar lines and gently-played piano notes that drift through the song like ghosts. Tracks like "Wild Child" and "On The Roam" evoke a palpable sense of modern restlessness, something that permeates all ofBaby Alpaca's music. It's a feeling that Kittrell attributes to his own meandering youth-a time spent experimenting, studying, travelling, and trying to locate his own creative voice.
The gentle, humane quality of Baby Alpaca's music is deeply indebted to Kittrell's adventurous youth. "I've always been torn between tradition and total wildness," he says, which explains the rather circuitous path he took before settling on music. Having studied a variety of subjects in college-everything from psychology to art to economics-to dipping his toes into the world of fashion working with Marc Jacobs and at The Row with the Olsen twins, Kittrell picked up a support system and a family of creative souls that help support him on the journey. "I've lived on rooftops in Bushwick and brownstones in Chelsea. I've traveled around the world. At some point I just threw caution to the wind. It was rough at times and it lead me to experience a variety of hardships, but it also brought to the place I was meant to be-which is playing music."
Baby Alpaca EP Tracklist (out 6/25 on Atlas Chair Records):
01. Wild Child
02. On The Roam
03. Sea of Dreams
04. Run With You
BABY ALPACA is:
Chris Kittrell (vocals, autoharp)
Zach McMillan (guitar, backing vocals)
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