Guillermo Sexo

When we launched our fancy new V:Player yesterday, we selected one band from each of the six inaugural channels to represent that genre’s overall sound. We tabbed Guillermo Sexo for the “Boston” channel, because, well, they’re from Boston. But we cheated — the music of Reuben Bettsak, Noell Dorsey, and company could have very well fit into a few other options, like “Rock,” or “Pop,” or “Indie.”
That’s always been the majesty of Guillermo Sexo’s back-lit valley-gaze. September’s systematically complex Dark Spring was a massive leap forward, sonically, for the band, and showed so many different sides no two reviews read the same.

As the band prepares to hit the Paradise Rock Club stage tomorrow night, November 13, with Sky Ferreira and Smith Westerns, the Boston veterans today released a new video for the Dark Spring’s latest single, the seasonally-appropriate “Fall Lens” (at least in title).

“Fall Lens” is a musical cardigan suitable for late autumn’s annual spiral towards winter, and its video, directed by G-Sexo’s Reuben Bettsak, is a chromatic swan dive through Brixton in reverse.

It’s a nice bit of color on a morning in Boston when all you see is white. And we’re excited to premiere it today on Vanyaland.

Win tickets to see Guillermo Sexo tomorrow at the Paradise Rock Club by emailing me at michael@vanyaland.com with I <3 SKY in the subject line -- no disrespect to Sexo, we know this is their video premiere and all that, but we gotta keep it consistent with the V:List, ya dig? — and we’ll select a winner at random early Wednesday morning. Want some Guillermo Sexo vinyl? Email me with I <3 SEXO and you'll be entered to win their hot-off-the-presses 12-inch.

Echo out your call and get in it to win it. - Michael Marotta, Vanyaland

We first got a taste of the new Guillermo Sexo record, Dark Spring, in the dead of winter. Three tracks emerged in the form of the self-released Bring Down Your Arms EP, led by the blistering fuzzed out battle-cry “Echo Out My Call.” Turns out, all that was just a tease, and a sign of a massive leap forward for the Boston quintet. Dark Spring, out Tuesday off Midriff Records, is a pretty complex album, almost human-like in its tendencies and attitudes. It’s at times moody and distant, and others warm and consoling. There’s a textured emotion to the entire thing, swallowed as a whole, and that’s why Vanyaland is honored to premiere Dark Spring as an exclusive stream from our friends at Midriff.
We’re teaming up with Illegally Blind to present the record release party on September 29 at the Middle East, which also features Marconi’s last show, DJ sets from Infinite Jeff, and two of our site’s favorite Massachusetts bands, Doze and Boogie Boy Metal Mouth. You’re pretty much required to call in sick rocked the following Monday. There’s also a listening party at ZuZu this Sunday, as well.

In the meantime, stream Dark Spring below, and as it takes you away, read through the Vanyaland interview with Guillermo Sexo’s Rebuen Bettsak and Noell Dorsey. We tackle the band as animals, touring with Ghost Box Orchestra, the evolution of the band, and why there’s a little Guillermo Sexo in all of us.
Vanyaland: If each member of Guillermo Sexo were an animal, which would they be? And why?

Reuben Bettsak: Elliott Anderson, our bass player, is an eagle. He’s a quiet guy observing things, but is also tough and handy. Dude can see the prey down below, and claim it without a sound. He is a special eagle that loves vintage Volvos, and jazz.

Noell Dorsey: I would say Elliott is totally an eagle or a falcon. He is a quiet guy but he is very observant and has the ability to size up situations and be on target. The strong silent type that can pretty much fix anything. Mechanical? Check. Electrical? Check. Upholstery, Dry Wall, yada yada? Yes! Plus he can open up a beer with a doorknob.

Bettsak: Ryan Connelly — our drummer is the owl. He is wise and likes the night time. He’s the type of owl that is fond of red wine and oysters.

Dorsey: Ryan is actually a bear to me. He brings so much force and creativity to the drums. He has a strong presence when he plays and I like to imagine his honey jar with duck pate and sparkling gamay on a tiny tray beside him as his reward once he is finished.

Bettsak: Noell is one of those singing, dancing birds-of-paradise. She’s colorful, has a great voice, and likes to dance around. Perhaps, she’s more dark like a sparrow though… she’s a singing bird-of-paradise by day, and a sparrow by night…

Dorsey: People have mentioned the bird reference to me a few times. Blackbird was a nickname I actually had back in the day. We actually have a song on the album called moonlight sparrow. Though it’s definitely not about me. Ha. I like to think I’m more feline though. Probably of the tuxedo variety. Where do you think the main source of “Meow Metal” came from?

Bettsak: Richard Murillo is still new, and I still need to figure out what kind of animal he is… maybe an orca?

Dorsey: I have been giving this one a lot of thought because Richard is so new to the band. In the end it was between an iguana and a squirrel. I went with the squirrel. He is so well prepared and ready for anything. On tour we called him our Director of Hospitality. He is nimble and such an excellent guitar player. Plus he loves games. You can see him building a checkers board out of acorns or something.

Bettsak: I’ve always liked foxes… so perhaps I’m a fox… or a turtle.

Dorsey: Ha! Ruby loves turtles. He is such a dynamic creative force though so I would say dolphin. The man has an arsenal of songs! Plus dolphins are sweet and silly like him. On looks alone though I would have gone with a koala. I love Ruby’s animal picks! It’s interesting that we were all birds except for Richard and himself.

For years GS has been lumped into the psych scene, but you might be the least psych-leaning band of that particular crew, at least over the past several years. Was the association built mainly on band friendships and social circles or do you guys identify as a psych band?

Dorsey: We personally don’t identify as a psych band though the musical influence is definitely there. Especially in our latest record with “Balboa” and “Coyote” it’s pretty apparent that’s the type of song we are writing. So much of our song-writing is organic. We are often surprised when we start writing where the song ends up after weeks of work. “Balboa” actually took no time to put together but “Coyote” took six months.

I honestly never expected that one to be our “psych” jam when we first embarked. I also think we used to get looped into the more shoegaze category as well and that was also not quite right. One quote I love by Laurie Siegel - Michael Marotta, Vanyaland

Back In Black is AC/DC's eighth record. Moving Pictures is Rush's ninth. Invisible Touch, whatever you might think of it, is Genesis' SEVENTEENTH record. We list these not because of their massive commercial success, but as evidence that the best acts keep getting better, so long as they have what they need to make it work. And as evidence, we suppose, that there was once something called the record industry, and it sometimes engaged in something called artist development. Those days would seem to be long gone, so we're not sure what it is, exactly, that sustains veteran Boston indie rockers Guillermo Sexo, who release a ?mesmerizing full-length titled Dark Spring next week.? Whatever it is, the quintet's new collection -- its fifth, and first for the venerable Midriff label -- is plainly Guillermo Sexo's magnum opus. It doesn't markedly alter the alchemy that resulted in their fantastic fourth record Secret Wild; instead Dark Spring is simply both bigger and deffer than its predecessor. And with the present ascendancy of Massachusetts indie rock in to the national consciousness, all signs indicate that Guillermo Sexo's time is now.

As did Secret Wild, Dark Spring fully embraces both bewitching, vintage English-styled folk sounds and gigantic, swirling, guitar-pop creations. This year's model, however, benefited from a longer, more thoughtful gestation, as the band told Vanyaland recently. And the results are astonishing. The centerpiece of the collection is the hypnotic and epic exploration "Meow Metal," a seven-minute song stacked with guitars, a prominent synth line, airy vocals and a bash-n-pop rhythm. Perhaps more than any other track, long-time collaborating engineer Justin Pizzoferrato's work here gives listeners the sense that Guillermo Sexo is not just playing their instruments to make the recording, but rather they are using their instruments to play the entire studio space itself. "Meow Metal" leads into the pastoral, serene ballad "Moonlit Sparrows," which in turn points to the bracing anthem "Fall Lens." There is not just stylistic variety among the songs on this record, there's also substantial variance in the length of the compositions across the set. That variance enhances an apparent narrative quality to Dark Spring: it really feels like a journey out of classic literature. That feeling is enhanced by titles such as the Tolkien-referencing, waltz-timed album closer "Shadowfax," but even more so by singer Noell Dorsey's mystical, other-worldly vocal performances and Mr. Bettsak's arrays of guitars that alternately shimmer and lacerate.

Dark Spring is the band's fifth record in seven years, proof that Guillermo Sexo (and specifically guitarist Reuben Bettsak, who issues a steady stream of demos to his Soundcloud and also plays in Future Carnivores, another Boston act) are remarkably prolific?. ?How many Boston indie rock acts have even been around long enough to have written, recorded and released five records? Better question: how many have been good enough to have warranted a catalog five albums deep? We certainly count Guillermo Sexo among that number, particularly in light of this new, next-level effort. Midriff releases Dark Spring Tuesday as a CD and digital download; a vinyl release is to follow shortly. You can pre-order the digital version via ITunes right here. Dark Spring will be feted both with a listening party Sunday night at Zuzu in Cambridge, Mass., and with a heavily anticipated record release show at Middle East Sept. 29, also in Cambridge. Whet your whistle by streaming the entire record via the Soundcloud embed below. - Jay Breitling - Clicky Clicky Music Blog

The Boston Fuzzstival in August was an all-day show celebrating Boston’s psychedelic and fuzz rock scene. Thirteen bands spread out in two rooms of the Middle East, including standouts like Ghost Box Orchestra, CreaturoS, and New Highway Hymnal. But the set of the night belonged to Guillermo Sexo.

Bathed in the swirling textures of psychedelic light projections, the Boston five-piece jumped back and forth between fuzzed-out noise and the liquid beauty of songs like “Bring Down Your Arms” and “Echo Out My Call.” Both tracks appear on the band’s fifth release, “Dark Spring,” out next week on Midriff Records.

“It was a great community-minded event,” guitarist Reuben Bettsak explained a few weeks later, on the road to Baltimore in the middle of a tour with Ghost Box Orchestra. “Playing with a bunch of bands that we’re friends with, with a similar aesthetic.”

They do share a lot of commonalities with others among the once-again emergent psych-rock scene, but whereas many bands might turn up the feedback and hammer through a wall of sound, Guillermo Sexo’s compositions are more varied in terms of texture and influence. “Echo Out My Call” sounds like a garage-rock Jefferson Airplane; “Dark Spring” is awash in harmonized shoegaze grandeur; and “Balboa” has a hypnotic kraut-rock by way of the ’60s feel, with some Stereolab thrown in.
“We’re stuck between a few different genres,” vocalist Noell Dorsey said. “I guess I would say psych, a little garage, some pop sensibility.”

“I don't think its something that I try to do on purpose when writing, saying, ‘We’re gonna have this part and this part,’?” Bettsak elaborated a few days later over drinks, before heading over to Royale to check out the Deerhunter show. “But for example, I do stuff with alternate tunings in a way that’s more akin to experimental bands, but try to make catchy songs out of those alternate tunings. I think that’s were a lot of the influences come out, it’s like forms of language that you use.”

As varied as the reference points are on the record, recorded by Justin Pizzoferrato (Dinosaur Jr., Thurston Moore, Speedy Ortiz), the band says this is the most focused it’s ever been, after nearly a decade since Bettsak started Guillermo Sexo as a solo project, and seven years since songwriting partner Dorsey came on board. The two met while students at the University of Hartford. Richard Murillo, Elliott Anderson, and Ryan Connelly round out the band.

“I’ve always had faith in the songs that we write,” Bettsak said. “but with this lineup it really comes together in the recording.”

That’s part of what drew Midriff head Cameron Keiber to the band in the first place.

“The minute I heard ‘Bring Down Your Arms’ I was sold,” Keiber said. “It’s such a great song. Simultaneously familiar and adventurous, and prickly, angular and sweet.”

It’s a tricky balance. “I think a lot of noise-pop or psych bands are a little too precious and can make work that’s inadvertently or purposefully inaccessible to a listener,” Keiber went on. “They want to make art with a capital A. That’s cool, and that can get boring. I like connecting with a song. . . . I don’t want to always be critiquing its intent.” Instead, what they’ve done here, he says, accurately, is make “an art rock record, with all the clanging, drones, and wonder that go with that, while retaining that sweetness and sincerity that separates them from a lot of what’s happening in the national scene now.”

“Everyone has their things they bring to the table and it forms the sound,” Bettsak says. “I love the Velvet Underground and Guided by Voices, but also nosier stuff like Sonic Youth and Fugazi.” Dorsey, on the other hand, has a more abstract, avant-garde background, whereas Connelly brings the heavier, metal touches. “Even though I know the songs can kind of go all over the place, I still try to make an album sound cohesive,” Bettsak says.

Bettsak, heading across the street to Royale, explained why he’s just back from tour and yet going out on a Monday night to see another band. Hasn’t he had enough? “There’s still a lot of moments where I see bands, big or local, where it still connects and there’s still magic. I’m glad I’m not jaded,” he says. - Luke O'Neil, The Boson Globe

This weeks show was amazing! Reuben of Guillermo Sexo joins us over the phone to talk about the band's new album, "Dark Spring," after which Benny Tucker of Secret Sessions Boston comes on to give us the 411 on some great shows he has this weekend!
Check it all out here with an extra BONUS INTERVIEW with Mark Phinney, writer and director of the feature film Fat Movie Page. - Citywide Blackout on UNRegular Radio

Guillermo Sexo

“BRING DOWN YOUR ARMS” EP

This shimmering Boston quartet has been shifting through lineups for years, blasting through a collection of high-speed indie rock at an admirable pace. Its latest, “Bring Down Your Arms,” might be its best yet. It’s full of dense guitar squalls and quick mood swings, like Sonic Youth on shuffle with the Jesus and Mary Chain, and just as often hints at melancholy ’60s pop like “California Dreamin’.” The opener, “All Whispers,” crawls from a wistful acoustic shuffle, singer Noell Dorsey floating over the easy changes until a crushing wall of fuzz crashes into the chorus. Here she lets loose, banshee Black Francis-style. A live-wire guitar solo follows, and we’re left with an airtight construction of noise and propulsive indie pop. Things get thornier in “Echo Out My Call,” with dissonant chunks of guitar chords and brooding back-and-forth vocals from Dorsey and guitarist Reuben Bettsak, culminating a sucker punch of a chorus (“Help me feel alive”) that catapults the whole song into another time zone for a couple of seconds. The best news? There’s a full-length album of this stuff on the way in the spring.


ESSENTIAL: “Bring Down Your Arms” - The Boston Globe

Guillermo Sexo

“BRING DOWN YOUR ARMS” EP

This shimmering Boston quartet has been shifting through lineups for years, blasting through a collection of high-speed indie rock at an admirable pace. Its latest, “Bring Down Your Arms,” might be its best yet. It’s full of dense guitar squalls and quick mood swings, like Sonic Youth on shuffle with the Jesus and Mary Chain, and just as often hints at melancholy ’60s pop like “California Dreamin’.” The opener, “All Whispers,” crawls from a wistful acoustic shuffle, singer Noell Dorsey floating over the easy changes until a crushing wall of fuzz crashes into the chorus. Here she lets loose, banshee Black Francis-style. A live-wire guitar solo follows, and we’re left with an airtight construction of noise and propulsive indie pop. Things get thornier in “Echo Out My Call,” with dissonant chunks of guitar chords and brooding back-and-forth vocals from Dorsey and guitarist Reuben Bettsak, culminating a sucker punch of a chorus (“Help me feel alive”) that catapults the whole song into another time zone for a couple of seconds. The best news? There’s a full-length album of this stuff on the way in the spring.


ESSENTIAL: “Bring Down Your Arms” - The Boston Globe

Our inaugural playlist of 2013 is hellbent for fuzz, kicking off with a ferocious track from indie veterans GUILLERMO SEXO. “Echo Out My Call” is a buzzed-out call-to-arms, and the first serving off the band’s new EP Bring Down Your Arms, out digitally this week. Rueben Bettsak of GSexo will be a guest on Boston Accents today, January 17, debuting his band's new songs and selecting other faves from around town (5pm EST, wfnx. - Phoenix Media/Communications Group

Our inaugural playlist of 2013 is hellbent for fuzz, kicking off with a ferocious track from indie veterans GUILLERMO SEXO. “Echo Out My Call” is a buzzed-out call-to-arms, and the first serving off the band’s new EP Bring Down Your Arms, out digitally this week. Rueben Bettsak of GSexo will be a guest on Boston Accents today, January 17, debuting his band's new songs and selecting other faves from around town (5pm EST, wfnx. - Phoenix Media/Communications Group

Cambridge is a pretty cool place, amirite? Along with the plethora of great venues the city boasts, there are some rad bands that can also call Cambridge home sweet home. One such band is Guillermo Sexo,
who just happened to put out an EP on this fine, wintry Wednesday!
The EP, Bring Down Your Arms, features three songs and serves as a tasty preview for the band’s forthcoming full-length, Dark Spring, which will tentatively be released mid-year.
As our lovely A+E Editor Cady described in her graveside interview with the band this past November, Guillermo Sexo don’t quite want to be classified into a specific genre, so we’re not going to try that here.
Let’s just say that Noelle Dorsey’s vocals are super smooth and calming, and that the guitars in the title track are unbelievably pretty. - Dig Publishing LLC

Guillermo Sexo's recently issued fourth full-length is doubly remarkable: not only is the Boston-based dream-pop quartet's collection Secret Wild very good, but also it strongly underscores that the band is very good at doing more than one thing -- no mean feat in today's atmosphere of the Internet subjecting acts to harder scrutiny ever earlier in their careers, before they even figure out how to do one thing right..... the songs on Secret Wild resonate even more strongly, perhaps because of a heightened air of psychedelia shot through the music, or perhaps because of the rich production. It's no matter -- either way Secret Wild is one of the strongest releases to date in 2011. - Jay Breitling - Clicky Clicky Music Blog

Guillermo Sexo's recently issued fourth full-length is doubly remarkable: not only is the Boston-based dream-pop quartet's collection Secret Wild very good, but also it strongly underscores that the band is very good at doing more than one thing -- no mean feat in today's atmosphere of the Internet subjecting acts to harder scrutiny ever earlier in their careers, before they even figure out how to do one thing right..... the songs on Secret Wild resonate even more strongly, perhaps because of a heightened air of psychedelia shot through the music, or perhaps because of the rich production. It's no matter -- either way Secret Wild is one of the strongest releases to date in 2011. - Jay Breitling - Clicky Clicky Music Blog

Secret Wild represents another leap forward and entertaining evolution in the sound that Guillermo Sexo has been refining for more than seven years now. - The Deli - New England Scene

One of the problems with prog rock is length. Looking to curtail the marathon songs of his outfit the National Blue, Reuben Bettsak launched Guillermo Sexo as a chance to work on a smaller scale. “It was more beat-based, like combining psychedelic rock with Latin rhythms,” says the guitarist, who, in a nod to the Panamanian side of his family, sang some songs in Spanish on the band’s debut.

Today he’s the only original member of Sexo, which sports influences from punk, ’90s shoegazer rock, ’60s English folk and avant-garde classical. Even so, “I feel like I’m doing a lot better at not throwing everything out there,” Bettsak says. “Maybe because I’m kind of A.D.D., I get bored staying too much within guidelines.” Secret Wild, the band’s fourth album, combines disparate elements like dreamy acoustic strums, slamming postpunk and singer/keyboardist Noell Dorsey’s
haunting warble.

Yet Sexo spins a surprisingly cohesive blend, even with strong musical personalities. Elliott Anderson can throttle his Fender bass. At a recent gig, new drummer Ryan Connelly (from the spacey Americana combo Mount Peru) wove tribal drums into the mix with the departing Jay Weixelbaum. Transitions are par for the course, and, as Bettsak says, “It still feels like we’re gaining momentum.” - Improper Bostonian

Avant-garde indie-rockers Guillermo Sexo’s soon to be released LP Secret Wild is some sweet Indian-summer nectar for those longing for the dreamy dissonance that ruled the 90’s. The fourth release from this Boston foursome shows the band tighten up the collective focus with their eyes on the prize of lingering melodies, crackling atmospherics and entrancing beats. Produced by Justin Pizzoferrato (Dinosaur Jr.,Thurston Moore) there’s ample homage to the arty noise-rock of Sonic Youth in Guillermo Sexo’s marriage of melody to discord as well as the occasional foray into spoken word over a driving, hypnotic thrash, ala their first song Color the Noise. Skyline and Leave Us shows off guitarist Reuben Bettsak’s penchant for angular, shimmering lines, while Green Eyes is a balls-out, spitting shredder; the band clearly reveling in its delightful nastiness. But where the band diverges from all those 90’s influences is their surprisingly crunchy side. Smoke Signals, although darkly spellbinding while showing off Noell Dorsey’s sultry vocals, is downright trippy and mellow. Secret Wild, the album’s namesake, is sweet, vintage 1960’s folked-out innocence and Exhale is simple, hushed beauty. Taken altogether, the fusion of reverb-soaked friction and strummy, psych-folk makes for a gorgeously compelling LP. Secret Wild is due out this September.

MP3 : Guillermo Sexo – Color the Noise

-Post by Miss Dolly Mod - My Old Kentucky Blog