Sun Voyager

Today's free song comes courtesy of Sun Voyager. The New York-based psych-rockers recently released a split EP, Grease Voyage, with labelmates Greasy Hearts, and keep churning out new tunes. We're excited to offer up their newest single, the fuzzy, lo-fi psych gem "God Is Dead." Stream and download the track above.

"'God is Dead' embodies our 'less is more' mantra," the band explains. "It's fuzz-psych driven and rides on a single riff."

Grease Voyage is out now on Pizza King Records. Stay tuned for a new EP and full-length from Sun Voyager early this year. And to our East Coast readers, the band plays at Wonder Bar in Asbury Park tomorrow night (January 3) with the Munsens. Find out more info here! - Purevolume.com

Heard on the recent King Pizza Records compilation, Surfin’ On Pizza Lightning; Orange County, NY’s own cosmic warriors Sun Voyagers debut the rip roaring monster thrills on their brand new single, “Let It Ride”. Carlos guides the band by guitar and voice, with Stefan on the bass, and Kyle kicking it on the drums, creating the classic, home rooted rock of ages, for all time, and all ensuing eras.

Previously heard doubting the pulse of deity on their “God is Dead” single; Sun Voyager takes you even heavier, and higher than before on the radical, riff-steamroller, “Let It Ride”. From here the garage doors are blown right off the hinges and roll-up tracts as these New Paltz galactic Voyagers navigate the this two minute, and twelve seconds blistering wonder deep into the high decibel void, and then back again. Carlos carries the song with the recited chorus line of “she’s a monster”, keeping the chords snarling while Kyle and Stefan’s rhythm section proves themselves as a fortress to be reckoned with. With everyone looking for where to find the next greatest phenomenons in garage rock culture; Sun Voyager is the DIY answer to those prayers. Stay with us after the song debut for our interview with the band.

Give us a little taste of what the world of Orange County, NY is like.

It’s full of apple orchards, wineries, and small towns and the scenery is something else in the fall. It’s close enough to the city for the commuters but far enough out so that you can take advantage of the mountain ranges. There’s a lot of great hiking and lakes everywhere. The Hudson River isn’t that dirty up here either. If you’re a band, you practice in a garage or shed and for shows you travel up and down the thruway a lot.

Any scenes out there of interest for you all?

New Paltz is a great town. Lot of great people up there and Snug Harbor always treats us right. The Wherehouse in Newburgh is an excellent spot, great for burgers and psychedelic vibes. There’s Quinn’s in Beacon which is another up and coming town on the other side of the river from Newburgh. We’ve been playing the Tuscan Cafe in Warwick for years. The Half Moon in Hudson is always hopping and the Brazenhead in our hometown of Monroe is a notable up-and-comer. We’re doing the pre-release show for our split there with the official release at Big Irv’s in Brooklyn.

Indie artists you want to give a shout out to?

Linear North from Albany are great dudes who know upstate well. It’s Not Night: It’s Space from New Paltz are great instrumental psych-rockers that bring the house down every time we play with them. Dead Channels from Warwick deliver some the punchiest hardcore in the Hudson Valley. We’ve been playing in Brooklyn and Manhattan a lot lately though and Greasy Hearts makes rock and roll too good not to mention here. The Mad Doctors have become great friends of ours. Seth records us and Greg, the big cheese at King Pizza Records, puts out our stuff. There are way too many to name but every artist on King Pizza really deserves a good listen. There’s something brewing and it’s great to be a part of.

How did you all first meet, and who decided that Sun Voyager would be your name?

We met back in high school. Actually, we played hockey together before high school but we started playing in bands together in high school. The three of us were in a band for 5 years that didn’t pan out. Carlos started writing some songs after that and Sun Voyager was born. He came up with the name and we all loved it.

Also too, what is the story behind the name? Somehow it reminded me of Star Trek’s Voyager series…how strong is the sci-fi contingent amongst you all here in the Sun Voyager camp?

Carlos saw ‘Sun Voyager’ on an RV and the idea of living on the road is easy to connect with. Also, the name really speaks for the music we play. We love everything sci-fi but don’t talk about it very often. Stefan’s a big “Battlestar Galactica” guy, though.

First of all, the song “Let It Ride” is an absolute monster; like one of those songs that are created with the most honesty by being incubated in shared, crowded garage spaces in the sprawl of suburbia, burying the vocals in the bedroom-pedal-board effects set ups, with gurgling, and shredding guitars like laser-rays that point toward the cityscapes. Tell us a bit on how this devastating riff-rider was made.

“Let It Ride” was actually the first song we wrote after our last release which was sort of heavy but way more relaxed. It’s one those songs that came about by jamming on a riff, finding a groove, and building around it. When you write music, there are so many songs that get tweaked and re-worked after you play them a couple times. Sometimes something doesn’t sound or feel quite right. This wasn’t the case for “Let It Ride” at all. We wrote it in the garage last spring and nothing has changed. Sometimes you get things right the first time and just let it ride.

This feels like a sound of further things to follow from Sun Voyager; what releases do you all have up your sleeves?

We’re releasing a cassette split with label-mates Greasy Hearts this Saturday night at Big Irv’s in Brooklyn and by the end of next month we’ll have a full length ready to go. You can hear one of the songs from it on the latest King Pizza compilation.

2015 game plan for Sun Voyager?

The full length will be out by late-January, early-February. We’re going to keep writing while playing out as much as possible. Hopefully we get a bunch of chances to play places we’ve never been and have another full length ready by the end of the year.

Sun Voyager and thoughts on the possibility of if and when this whole space tourism thing will ever get it’s program off the ground?

You asked us about sci-fi before and I think the three of us connect way more on the subject of space. That show Cosmos was great and it seems like something new gets discovered almost every day. Now we’re sending people to Mars to see if we can live there and we’re sending astronauts to an asteroid to see if there’s water inside that maybe we can use to go even further into space. The universe could be a road and we’re on the brink of discovering it. Where does it go? How do we get there? There’s got to be some kind of “road” we can use in order for there to be any kind of tourism. We probably won’t be using RV’s but once there’s a “road,” we’ll be on it for sure.

Sun Voyager’s split with Greasy Harts will be available December 6 from King Pizza Records. - Impose Magazine

Hailing from Orange County, N.Y., pysch-rock trio Sun Voyager are gearing up for a very special split EP with Brooklyn’s Greasy Hearts, and between the two of them, they’re going to have the corner on the garage rock scene in no time. Today (Nov. 25), Diffuser is thrilled to debut Sun Voyager’s contribution to the upcoming EP, ‘Desert Dweller’ — stream it below.

The track pulses with gritty power that sounds like it’s coming straight from your neighbor’s garage, packed with non-stop, unadulterated rock and roll. “We’ve been itching to release new music for awhile,” bassist Stefan Mersch tells us. And he’s excited to partner with Greasy Hearts to help unleash those fresh tunes. “We would never have met them if it wasn’t for [our record label] King Pizza … after a couple of shows with those guys, we knew it had to be done.”

As for the split EP, Mersch believes it’s exactly what they need to do right now. “This three-song split is a dynamic we embrace,” he explains. “It’s different from our old releases and only a piece of what our full-length has to offer.”

If you like what you hear — and we’re sure you do — head over to Sun Voyager’s Bandcamp for even more psychedelic garage rock goodness, and stay tuned for more details for their split EP with Greasy Hearts. - Diffuser.fm

Psychedelic-garage rockers Sun Voyager are dropping their newest split release Grease Voyage on December 9th. Sun Voyager’s hard charging, three track half of the split comes in tandem with Brooklyn-based band Greasy Hearts, label mates on King Pizza Records.

Since their inception in July 2012, the trio of Carlos Valle (guitar/vocals), Stefan Mersch (bass) and Kyle Beach (drums) have pumped out two other EPs, Cosmic Tides and Mecca, and most recently released a demo entitled "Gypsy Hill". Radio-blog The Obelisk praised Mecca saying, “it blends the classic with the modern and captures a terrestrial sound that’s at once loose and swaggering and richly exploratory.”

The lead single off of the Grease Voyage split is “Let It Ride”, which underscores Sun Voyager’s distinct blend of psych-garage rock with strong guitar riffs and haunting vocals over a banging drum beat. Take a listen to “Let It Ride” in this space and be sure to pick up Grease Voyage December 9th. - Alt Sounds

A couple of weeks ago, we had garage-psych rock outfit Sun Voyager take the SIMGE Survey which yielded the most thorough responses to date. Now the band is ramping up into full gear with the recent releases of singles “God Is Dead” and “Desert Dweller”. The former is off of a larger King Pizza Records compilation while the latter comes from a split EP with label mates Greasy Hearts set to drop on December 9th.

These two scorching tracks highlight the best of contemporary blissed out, lurching, monstrous riffing with “God Is Dead” working the early Sabbath angle while “Desert Dweller” kicks up the intensity. Stream both below and look for more from Sun Voyager very soon. - Speak Into My Good Eye

Just a few weeks ago I dropped a tune from Sun Voyager in regards to their forthcoming split with Greasy Hearts, but they’ve just unleashed another new tune for a label comp that’s coming your way soon. This track is the perfect blow-your-hair-back psych rock that makes for great liver performances; it’s got this sludgy deep riff that rattles your soul, while the vocals wobble in atmospheric fashion atop it all. This is for fans that like the heavier side of psych rock…and really, just those that want to rock on a Monday. - Austin Town Hall

Orange County, NY, four-piece Sun Voyager bookended 2013 with demo releases. The first was Cosmic Tides, which arrived in January with three tracks and was issued on cassette, and the latest is Mecca. Also three songs and not yet given a physical pressing that I know of, Mecca finds its breadth in a laid back atmosphere of heavy psychedelia and rolling low end groove. The two guitars of Carlos Valle (also vocals) and Steve Friedman run through a varied level of effects from wah to cave echo, sometimes using a slide to evoke a swamp blues feel amid the pastoral sunshine of their tones and Valle‘s semi-shoegaze vocal approach, which follows the riffs on “Mecca,” “Space Queen” and “Suns of the Future” with burgeoning confidence and poise. Bassist Stefan Mersch is essential in keeping the songs together and moving forward, locking in smoothly with drummer Kyle Beach while the guitars move through and around the central figures of the songs. This is a pretty familiar construction for heavy psych, but Sun Voyager put it to use well, capturing a terrestrial sound that’s at once loose and swaggering and richly exploratory.

They get underway with “Mecca,” which clocks in at five minutes flat of immediately engaging, guitar-led fare. The initial groove rolls slow and subtly bluesy with space-echo lead guitar behind Valle‘s verse, which rests comfortably on the plush bassline. A tension is built leading to a swell in volume, but they’re not quite ready to give away the chorus yet. “Mecca” rises and falls in volume and energy, fluid all the while and progressively gaining volume as it pushes past the three-minute mark. It remains languid as Valle drops the title line, “The Mecca has arrived,” a couple times before feedback ends the song and cuts to Mersch‘s bass starting “Space Queen.” Both “Mecca” and closer “Suns of the Future” are around the five-minute mark, but “Space Queen” approaches eight and its feel is suitably jammed-out. Doubly hypnotic thanks to repetitive lyrics, “Space Queen” is arguably the easiest cut on Mecca to get lost, with a solo topping the jam that leads not to a massive crescendo — there is one, it’s just not overblown — but instead to a quieter finish, peaceful, psychedelic, and improvised-sounding, ending with a standalone feedback hum that gives way to the more active shuffle at the launch of “Suns of the Future.”

Last of the three, “Suns of the Future” is more upbeat, with steady kickdrum hits from Beach propelling its verses, an open chorus and effective tradeoffs between louder and softer stretches united by the delivery of Valle, which carries just the slightest tinge of Americana twang. A natural, classic heavy vibe persists, but Mecca is thoroughly modern, and along with the memorable songwriting, that bodes well for where Sun Voyager might go from here. You can check out Mecca (and Cosmic Tides, for that matter) now as part of the regular playlist on The Obelisk Radio, and get a sampling of the tracks on the Bandcamp player below. Either way, enjoy:

- See more at: http://theobelisk.net/obelisk/2013/12/11/sun-voyager-mecca-radio-add/#sthash.py2ObyZ2.dpuf - The Obelisk

Look, labeling bands is terrible. Sun Voyager and Greasy Hearts are “garage rock” whatever the hell that means. Are they the music your uncle listens to while he changes the oil in your aunt’s Subaru? That depends on how cool your uncle is and how sick/nasty your aunt is.

Sun Voyager is a 3-piece garage-psych-surf-punk-stoner-hot-dog-pine-sol, whatever band. Just give them a listen all ready? They’ve just released a split with rock-n-roll-hot-and-cold-x-box-pancake-good-time band, Greasy Hearts and it’s online for free. It’s good. It’s real good. It’s a slimy pile of sloppy fuzz that makes your ears feel like hard nipples and your hard nipples feel like EVEN harder nipples. And it’s online for free.

Both bands are on Brooklyn’s own King Pizza records, which if you’ve ever never checked out, is like your rich childhood friend that had every Super Nintendo game at their place. Get it? The bands are the Nintendo games— why are you reading pedestrian metaphors and not listing to this split that is online for free?

Go. Now. Run. Run. Rudolph. It’s online for free. - Blah Blah Blah Science

Who doesn't love them some good old, dirty, psychedelic garage rock? We sure as shit do! That's why we're stoked to bring you this exclusive premiere of the song "Mind Maze" from the three-piece rock band, Sun Voyager. Recommended to fans of acts like Ty Segall Band, Thee Oh Sees, or The Black Angels, Sun Voyager is simply put, a dirty good time! Go get lost in "Mind Maze" now!

The threesome are gearing up to drop their newest split release, Grease Voyage, on December 9th. The band's "hard charging, three track half of the split comes in tandem with Brooklyn-based band Greasy Hearts, label mates on King Pizza Records." Get pumped for some awesome! - Pure Grain Audio

There is an awesome buzz about Albany, NY-based band Sun Voyager in recent months and now I can see why and due to the influx of bands received on a weekly basis I almost looked this one over. Granted, it is only a 3-song EP, but it gives you an idea of where the band is headed. Substituting the warm fuzzy guitar tone is a warbly bluesy-twang that sends you swirling into the vortex of another dimension. The songs are slick, mesmerising and hypnotic, reminiscent of the psychedelic/garage rock movement of the seventies. Opening track "Oh, Sally" shakes and grooves, while "New American City" focuses around a hard driving spellbinding riff. Album closer "Cosmic Tides" is the highlight of the EP for me with it's slow rhythm and hot slide guitar licks. The EP is available for free on their Bandcamp page. Get it now! - Heavy Planet

Ah, nice, a three track demo compromising the first recordings of Sun Voyager, hailing from Albany, New York. Short and sweet, totalling just over 11 minutes, it allows the casual listener eager to hear new music the chance to quickly gauge if this is for them, and permits the busy (lazy?) reviewer respite from double-figure track demos that bog down the workload. It's a hard life don't you know.

Cosmic Tides is an enjoyable and bright demonstration of the band's potential, a dive of a watering hole designated rendevous point for the meeting place between 70's stoner and garage rock. Like the much missed Josiah if they wrote for Nebula (or vice versa), it reminds me of a few long standing British bands such as Gorilla, Marshan or Blackrock with the tempo relatively high and not weighted down by overly fuzzy guitars or doom riffs.

While none of those three bands really kicked on, there's enough variety here to suggest Sun Voyager can make waves when they get round to a full album. The self titled closer is darker than what comes before, with slide guitars giving a Small Stone feel, without going all southern rawk on you. Free to download on bandcamp, rock fans of stoner and garage variety have no excuse not to take the voyage. - Nine Hertz

Marauding garage-punk trio Sun Voyager have a split ep out with Greasy Hearts (streaming at Bandcamp, and also available on cassette, yay). The opening track, Desert Dweller, is the best one, a truly gorgeous feast of multitracked, distorted Fender Twin guitar amp sonics. It’s like a slightly less noisy version of what the Skull Practitioners do. Mind Maze, Sun Voyager’s second track, sounds like something from the Boomtown Rats’ first album if that band had switched out the punk for stoner garage production values. The last one, Let It Ride has trickier rhythms and a searing, tone-bending guitar solo out. Greasy Hearts’ three contributions to the ep include one with a Coney Island High-style late 80s/early 90s punk-metal swagger, a more trad garage tune and then a surprisingly eclectic number with echoes of both oldschool soul and vintage Sabbath.

Another heavily Sabbath-influenced track is Sun Voyager’s latest single, God Is Dead (also up at Bandcamp). Both bands are playing the King Pizza Records mini-festival which starts at 4 PM this Saturday, Dec 13 at Don Pedro’s. Sorry for the short notice, but the show never made it onto the radar here: the venue’s calendar hasn’t been updated in a couple of months. - New York Music Daily

La banda originaria de Nueva York, Sun Voyager, compartió a través de redes sociales su nuevo EP titulado Grease Voyage, del cual se desprenden los sencillos, “Mind Maze”, “Desert Dweller” y “Let It Ride”.

La agrupación conformada por Carlos Valle, Stefan Mersch y Kyle Beach, se ha caracterizado por tener en cada una de sus producciones y composiciones, fuertes influencias de garage rock y sonidos psicodélicos.

“Grease Voyage” se encuentra disponible en su canal oficial de SoundCloud. - Revista Metronomo