Summer Avenue

About

There is a strip of U.S. Highway 70 in Memphis, Tennessee that is long and flat and unending, filled with bodegas and taquerias and dim sum and pho. It’s the city’s unofficial cultural crossroads and the namesake for its newest sound: Summer Avenue. Like that strip of highway, Summer Avenue’s music is a mash-up of tastes and textures, likely to change just as you think you’ve figured it out. Their debut album, Some Sort of Color, mixes hints of power-pop and electronica with rich harmonies and 80s-influenced songcraft, a buffet of their wildly eclectic influences, from <a href="spotify:artist:3WrFJ7ztbogyGnTHbHJFl2" data-name="The Beatles">The Beatles</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:3oDbviiivRWhXwIE8hxkVV" data-name="The Beach Boys">The Beach Boys</a> to <a href="spotify:artist:3jOstUTkEu2JkjvRdBA5Gu" data-name="Weezer">Weezer</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:3u1ulLq00Y3bfmq9FfjsPu" data-name="Ween">Ween</a>. Their latest album, Some Sort of Color, is a document, in a way, of the evolution of a band that formed before its members could drive a car. Years before. All the while, the four members of Summer Avenue (William Trotter on drums/vocals, Christopher Dunn on guitar/vocals, Will Kelley on bass and <a href="spotify:artist:0yvKKqb1Yz6ZO4pjTIp2Jk" data-name="Mike Kelley">Mike Kelley</a> on keys/vocals) were maturing as songwriters, musicians, players, and capturing it on tape. From the traditional pop forms of Some Sort of Color’s opening track – “Cut it Close,” a blend of new wave, modern electronica and 70s vocal harmonies – to its more experimental moments – “You...,” a hypnotizing journey of samples, loops and vocal effects – this stunning debut belies the youth of its creators. And that’s Summer Avenue – a new Memphis sound.

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