Calliope Musicals - This is Not the End

COLOR/SWEAT - CALLIOPE MUSICALS

Austin’s reputation as a haven for misfits, oddballs, and outlaws of all stripes actually delivers when it comes to Calliope Musicals. Since their inception, they have aimed to give the middle finger to that music scene’s cult of masculinity by way of flourishing a far wider spectrum of human color. Said by the Austin Chronicle to stick out like a “sore thumb” on the city’s music scene, Calliope Musicals stands up for Austin as a frontier town for outlaws of all stripes.

Carrie Fussell, formed the group while in college at UT and gathering a “misfit band of merrymakers and oddballs.” Calliope started as an acoustic-folk project (because college, right?). But as members came and went, their sound slowly evolved. Craig Finkelstein switched to synthesizers. Josh Bickley signed on as drummer, with Andrew Vizzone holding down the low end on bass. They simmered and stirred and wrote and gigged and the glorious result was, as Carrie says, a “colorful, noisy, sweaty dance party.” USA Today has noted they “make infectious pop music that exists somewhere on the wavelength between folk and psychedelia” and NPR’s All Songs Considered have gushed that the act’s second-hand space glam is “modern space-rock done right.”

On the prismatic glam-rock anthems of Calliope Musicals’ new album Color/Sweat, the group’s first LP for Rhyme and Reason, frontperson Carrie Fussell belts out lyrics like she just licked the apple of Eden and likes it. The liberation is unapologetic. “I will not fear this body / I will not doubt its power” runs the refrain of the album’s opening track, “Fear This Body,” a mantra that bears repeating at any age.

Color/Sweat is the follow up to 2016’s Time Owes You Nothing. While not a concept album, the new LP is largely one of empowerment and autonomy in a wider social climate that is actively working against those things. Carrie notes, “it was pretty jarring to wake up the morning after our president was elected, knowing that I was waking up in a world that doesn't value humanity and life and kindness and diversity. This wasn't just happening in my personal life, but in lots of people’s lives and I couldn't have written a record that didn't address that even if I tried.”

The album was recorded at The Bubble in Austin, Texas with Frenchie Smith. “He has such an adventurous spirit when it comes to recording,” Carrie explains, “and most of the process was a game of chicken where no one gave up and there was a sort of magical explosion of sound as a result.” She wrote some of the album while on tour, specifically in NYC, noting, “new spaces and uncertainty always inspires me creatively. I recorded voice memos of the vocals, and then when I got home, started figuring out arrangements and instruments.” And unlike in the past, she felt the confidence to write and record solo demos before presenting them to the band. Fussell also recently started using a loop pedal -- "Deep End," "Whole Without It," "Up t