fpodbpod
-from San Francisco, CA
-The inimitable. The indispensable. The incomprehensible. fpodbpod. Eff-pod-bee-pod. 

Borrowing from the peninsular nature of San Francisco, the city from which they sprung, fpodbpod stretches out into the brackish depths where the traditions of pop music, minimalist art rock, and alternative commingle. The band is the brain-child of Sean Olmstead, the enigmatically cantankerous multi-instrumentalist who plays all the instruments on fpodbpod’s first formal LP, The Girls, a meandering album of hooky melodies of swirling electric guitars underpinned by acoustically droning rhythms and sweet, salty vocalizations. Tracks like “Close the Door” evoke the gentle melancholy of Velvet Underground ballads, while “Any Sunday” delivers its wistful melody and romanticized lyrics atop a barrage of feedback like a Kevin Shields hymnal. 

Olmstead followed up with So Many Colors, an album over 10 years in the making, whose recording was a collaboration with the likes of Matt Adams of The Blank Tapes, Will Halsey of Sugar Candy Mountain, and Indianna Hale. The songs deliver a kind of sardonic naïveté like the forebears early 90’s home brewed alternative rock, with a tinge lysergic surrealism. Layered grunge guitars, baselines that could be plucked straight from Revolver, frenetic drums, and thoughtful harmonies permeate songs like “God Damn, I Love You,” while “Don’t Paint Me Blue” is a psychedelic treatise on longing and alienation buoyed by minor 7th soulfulness. 

The forthcoming When You’re Cool continues this work along the traditions of pop and psychedelia, again seeing Olmstead returning to his one-man-band multitracking roots, recording all principal tracks to 1/4” 8 track tape during the 2020 lockdown. This record further explores the influences of German minimalism, such as on tracks like the synthetic instrumental “EKJ,” while also holding court amongst the garage rock greats, both historical and contemporaneous, with Kinks-y bangers like “Sugar High” and the mercilessly blistering surf guitars—by way of the East Village, circa 1967—of “Makin’ $.” 

Though no one ever accused him of being overly prolific—with an average of about one record every 5 years—Sean Olmstead’s song-writing and recording stand out for their adherence to an ethos of principled esthetic, tapped into the vein of traditions which bind New York of the 60’s, Dusseldorf of the 70’s, and Manchester of the 80’s, steeped in melody, texture, subtle glances toward the horizon, and—always—a smile and a wink.