Brent Rademaker would like to think that GospelbeacH’s Pacific Surf Line is a celebration of our country’s two left coasts—though maybe he would’ve preferred a bit more Old Florida charm to counter the L.A. swagger. “I really wanted to make this album sound like the kinds of music I listened to growing up in the ’70s,” says Rademaker, a native of the Gulf Coast. By and large, though, Pacific Surf Line celebrates Rademaker’s return to Southern California. For a collective ef fort, the LP is surprisingly lean, with more refined nods to the Flying Burrito Brothers twang that informed Rademaker’s former group, Beachwood Sparks. GospelbeacH—Rademaker, Neal Casal, Jason Soda, Kip Boardman and Tom Sanford—isn’t afraid to broach the breezy accessibility of yacht-rock mainstays like the Eagles and Loggins & Messina, either. The band will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new feature on them.
Rademaker: Who is Montero? Whilst everyone losing their minds over all things coming from “down under,” I thought I’d let you know about Montero (a.k.a. Ben Montero): one of the more enigmatic artist to emerge from Australia in the last few years. His music with his band Montero is authentic ’70s mellow goodness right down to the production. Upon hearing it for the first time, it was like ’70s Elton John/Beach Boys but with a touch of Ariel Pink, if Ariel spent his record budget on a world-class recording studio rather than world-class drugs or porn stars. (That’s a joke.)
Benny is also an artist who’s main character in his Instagram strip is a frog who seems to be in every awkward or sad situation that I’ve even been in. He also makes animated clips for other Australian groups that are super rad as well as LP covers for Australian groups.
I tried to get him to do an animated clip for GospelbeacH, and we spoke about it, but he’s not the type of guy to stay put long enough to commit to a project that would require thousands of hand-drawn images. I think last I heard, he was on the Greek islands getting it together. Montero, Ben Montero. There’s lots of cool stuff there, you just gotta dig!
Video after the jump.
