Treehouse Basement formed in 2014 and have since been consistently slapping Albuquerque in the face with catchy, desert-fused indie-pop. Their take on contemporary dance-rock has a bad habit of animating audiences, quite often evoking people to move and groove regardless if they want to or not. You may have seen the Basement in various venues across the Albuquerque in the past two years; they've established their live sound by taking lo-fi cues from Two Door Cinema Club, Interpol and early Mutemath.
I coerced Treehouse to come talk about how life is in the Basement, all things music, recording and ‘90s cartoon shows.
The band recently lost their bassist and founding member Nate Hewitt, but added a shiny new synthesizer for live performances. It’s a time of changes in their young lifespan; however current members seem to be quite motivated to push on and learn more of what they’re capable of. Despite the fallout, the members still remain on good terms. And those current members are, quite rightfully:
Jose Ortiz: Vocals/Guitar/Bass
Tyler De La O: Guitar/Bass/Synth
Casey Frew: Drums/Keyboards
They work well together. Ortiz’s melodic vocals slice between Frew’s quick drum lines like a serrated throw pillow, with De La O on the ranks of whatever instrument the song requires. You may have recently experienced them at Fiestas 2017 during the afternoon, playing among the ranks of Eugene and Naked Giants. Currently, the band is taking a pseudo-break on performing and focusing their efforts on recording the second album due for a late 2017 or early 2018 release.
Check out the first episode of the Daily Lobo’s Local Band Podcast here on YouTube.
As our first episode, I must concede that this was as much as a test-run as it was a lovely chat with the Basement. Audio levels are a tad off until 12-or-so minutes, but luckily the gods of sound we’re kind to fix this as the 'cast continued forth.
Audrin Baghaie is the music editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at music@dailylobo.com
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