Brown Recluse

A prolific pop band double dips in the dark side — will they ever see the sun again?

by John Vettese

Jessica Kourkounis

"Our problem is we have too many songs," says Tim Meskers. "Which kind of is a good problem to have."

Don't get the wrong idea. Brown Recluse's soft-spoken singer-guitarist doesn't overwhelm people with his prolific writing — he's not Daniel Johnston — but the Philly five-piece is dropping two releases this winter. Its official full-length debut, Evening Tapestry, gets a physical release March 15 on Slumberland Records. The companion, Panoptic Mirror Maze, has been a free download on Brown Recluse's Bandcamp page since January. Meskers says the band needed both collections to get their current ideas off the shelf and into the world. The works are intertwined — the title of Tapestry is taken from a song on Panoptic, and themes of tombs and death echo across the two.

There's also a sonic link: humming organs, bright horns and jangly acoustic guitars that were all recorded while the band was shut in at the South Philadelphia house shared by Meskers and keyboardist Mark Saddlemire during the snowpocalypse of February 2010. "We spent 14 hours that day recording stuff," says singer-guitarist Herbie Shellenberger. "Everything from distorted bongos to backup vocals."

The long block of home-studio time was indispensable, since the arrangements planned were practically orchestral in scope. Meskers calls the process "meticulous"; lengthy conversations about minutiae such as tape echo and reverb took place before they pressed record (and after).

"They would really push me to try different things," adds Shellenberger. "For other bands I've been in, it's very one and done."

Brown Recluse's previous EPs, The Soft Skin (2009) and Black Sunday (released under the moniker Brown Recluse Sings in 2008), are breezy pop in a retro '60s fashion, the stuff of Belle and Sebastian and The Essex Green. Slumberland honcho Mike Schulman says he was immediately attracted to their style when Shellenberger slipped him a demo at Pi Lam in 2009.

"It referred back to a lot of music I like — Curt Boettcher's sunshine pop, and Margo Guryan, obviously — but it doesn't sound like them exactly," he says. "That's hard to do, especially for a young band."

The new releases take that existing variety and expound on it.

Tapestry's single, "Impressions of a City Morning," is a bouncy romp that's probably the most akin to Brown Recluse songs of yore (like "Contour and Context" or "Margo, Left in Bed"). Brushstick beats skip along, acoustic guitars race after, Meskers and Shellenberger harmonize, horns enter in the distance. On Panoptic, "Memory Museum" moves in a similar fashion, with its opening fanfare and staccato guitar accents.

But the snappy pitter-patter of "Monday Moon" on Tapestry shows a more synthpop side to Brown Recluse, equaled by the fractured raygun beeps and feisty organ on Panoptic 's "Skeletons." Atmospheric keyboard notes meet '50s slow dance sounds on "Statue Garden." Most unexpected is how macabre both collections get: A harpsichord lurches across "Mirror Mansion," while "Wax Fangs" sets a slow, spooky mood. "Paisley Tears," Tapestry 's penultimate number, is the most dramatic shift in that direction, where uneasy wah-pedal guitar, theremin, a minor-key arpeggio and eerie strings drift down a haunted stream.

After all the boundary-pushing and mood-swinging, Meskers says he's inspired to take things further still. "I think the new stuff I'm working on for Brown Recluse is a little more dark," he says. "It's not going to be as sunshine poppy."