CHEW by Jamey McDaniel
“I’ve had an ongoing thought about a machine that records dreams,” Brett Reagan of CHEW tells PureHoney. “It would be weird if you could do that and wouldn’t fully translate. I think the result would be like recording something on VHS. The warbles, the static. Not a 1:1 facsimile, like trying to explain a dream to someone else. It doesn’t work quite right.”
Until that machine appears, Reagan has music to give dreams form. He and bandmate Sarah Wilson are bringing their guitar, drums and electronics manipulations to Bumblefest for what promises to be an experience of lysergic heaviness.
“A lot of our music comes from big explosions,” Reagan says. “When we have a break from touring, Sarah and I will head to our practice space and lock ourselves in there for days with a head full of acid. I’ll bring a lot of the electronic bits and guitar riffs that I have accumulated, and we will use all the sounds in the pallet and improvise.”
CHEW arrived with a triptych of recordings and intertwined artwork employing the Tarot deck’s Devil as a symbol of consumerism. Of the three releases — 2016’s “3D EP,” 2017’s “A Fine Accoutrement,” and 2020’s “Darque Tan” — the last really presaged what was to come: the electronic appliqués that would manifest in lockdown and wind up in more elaborated form on 2022’s “Horses.”
“There were a lot more electronics involved in creating these songs,” Reagan says of CHEW’s lastest full-length. “So we wanted to give them the attention that they needed. We didn’t want to pull them out of the oven too early.”
CHEW had primarily operated as a trio, but circumstances kept pulling bass players away. “I’m actually really enjoying the two-piece exploration,” Wilson tells PureHoney. “Brett and I know each other’s styles so well, so writing these new songs has been a breeze. We sound a little bit more electronic, but we still get heavy with it. More like how we started.”
Bumblefest is Sept. 1 and 2 with 40 acts on five stages in downtown West Palm Beach. bumblefest.com, 3dchew.com ~ Abel Folgar
