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John Bias Presents: Pandemonium & The Ever-Expanding Inexplicable Sound

With Mr. Rosewater on the backburner for a while, John Bias (aka Tobias, Patrick, et al.) assembled another band to record a collection of songs that he’d been writing. This band, consisting of Sam Cooper, Sam Jaeger, and Joseph Synnett, and of course John himself, booked one day at Fairweather Studio to live-track almost the entirety of Pandemonium & The Ever-Expanding Inexplicable Sound.

The only song that wasn’t finished during that first session was “Little Bees”, so John went back a week later to track that one. Somewhere along the way, John decided that the track could use a little spicing up, so he brought in Clay White to throw in some trumpet and percussion work. You probably know Clay White from his work with The High Divers, SUSTO, Brave Baby, and a handful of other local bands. He’s the one who plays the epic trumpet part on Brave Baby’s “Forty Bells”.

Back to Pandemonium, though. I’ll say it bluntly: I really like this album. It makes me wish I waited to finalize my Best Albums of 2017 list so I could have thrown it on there. Pandemonium & The Ever-Expanding Inexplicable Sound is a fresh rock sound that is fully welcome in the sphere of Charleston’s music scene.

John Q. Bias has developed a style of singing that at times sounds like an announcement coming from a government loudspeaker on an urban street corner. This type of sound started with Mr. Rosewater, and has been explored further with this new record. I want to be clear that I’m not saying this album sounds like propaganda, but rather the vocal effects make it sound like John’s singing from far away. Although if the government decided to blast this album on the streets I would be okay with it.

Stream Pandemonium & The Ever-Expanding Inexplicable Sound below, and catch John Bias live at Tin Roof on Wednesday, January 10th with Secret Guest and Heaven.