With eight members keying in instrumentation from the trombone and trumpet to the drums and saxophone, the stylish Greensboro pop-funk band Reliably Bad is big on maximalism, though its professed goal is very simple: Bring “danceable music to people all around.”
On “Summer,” a new track premiering on the INDY today, that danceability is of the swooning, swaying variety, in a track about love and waiting (apropos for 2020, no?).
Vocalist Jessica Schneider’s voice has a soft glamour to it, flecked with sumptuous disco longing– think Stevie Wonder crossed with Jessie Ware—as she croons “I’ll just have to wait here till summer/While winter’s got a hold on me.”
Schneider’s extensive backing band—Chris Sisco (trumpet), Charlie Sothcott (trombone), Jimmy Washington (guitar), Matt Laird (bass), Colin Moser (keys), Zac Covington (drums), and Chris Peebles (sax)—aren’t too bad, either, with precise, lively instrumentals. Though officially based in Greensboro, the band sprawls across the piedmont, with about half of the band’s bespeckled members living in the Triangle.
For its forthcoming debut album, produced by Charlie Hunter (Frank Ocean, John Mayer) and Gabe Fox-Peck (Young Bull) and mastered by Chapel Hill’s Kitchen Mastering, the band even brings in still more musicians to round out a diverse instrumental bill. That album—not-yet-named, and slated for early 2021—tells a story about post-college unrest and finding one’s way in the world.
Watch the video for “Summer” below, before it drops on Spotify and other platforms on Thanksgiving Day.
Follow Deputy Arts & Culture Editor Sarah Edwards on Twitter or send an email to sedwards@indyweek.com.
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