Music Discovery With Steve Lamos of American Football

American Football’s new album American Football (LP3) is out now on Polyvinyl. American Football drummer, University of Colorado professor, and Colorado resident Steve Lamos credits the new album’s influence to several sources, including jazz, ambient, and shoegaze.

Particularly on the band’s new album, and throughout American Football’s entire catalog, countless sounds overlay Mike Kinsella’s through-the-looking-glass vocals, including bell-chimes, vibraphones, and other hushed textures, many tracked in by Lamos. 

So, how does a band incorporate so many textures? By having a huge taste in all subsets of music. 

“I know that we all love Can (especially Future Days) and Steve Reich (especially Music for 18 Musicians) and Brian Eno (especially Another Green World),” Lamos says, explaining the band’s influences.

“All of those records are ambient in one sense or another. And I know that Mike especially loves the Sundays and My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless and all things Slowdive. It was a thrill for us to be able to get Rachel Goswell to sing on this record.” 

Below are 13 albums Lamos draws on as continual influences. Some are otherworldly; some are unexpected. When listening to American Football through the years, none are surprising. 

 

Miles Davis | In a Silent Way

This record, especially “Shh / Peaceful” is now my personal mantra: I’ve probably listened to this song every day for 30 years now. I work to it; I rest to it; I fall asleep to it. I hope it will be played on loop at my funeral. I think that Miles actually dismissed this record as “wallpaper music” or some such thing, but it has quite literally been the soundtrack to my existence.

Bill Frisell | Bill Frisell with Dave Holland and Elvin Jones

My friend Ben gave me this record about 15 years ago: it’s like a soundtrack to driving through Colorado’s high country. Frisell always uses amazing space and has amazing tone, but the addition of Dave Holland and Coltrane’s own Elvin Jones is not to be missed.

(Incidentally, I wasn’t surprised at all to learn that Frisell is from Denver and that he went to the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley to study jazz: our Colorado landscape permeates his music in a big way. More incidentally, I’m also listening to Frisell’s newest record with Mary Halverson (and produced by John Zorn) as I speak – and I think it might already be a favorite.)

St. Vincent | St. Vincent

The solo guitar in the middle of the opening track on this record is one of my favorite moments ever recorded. Annie Clark is my hero.

Gillian Welch | The Harrow and the Harvest

Wow: this a dark and beautiful record. I first fell in love with Welch’s music through Hell Among the Yearlings. I also love Dave Rawling’s accompaniment on voice and guitar. They’re practically melding together at times. But Harrow is my favorite record of hers right now: “That’s the Way that it Goes” speaks to me on like 10 levels.

Norah Jones | Come Away with Me

This is the perfect pop record. Jones’s timing and phrasing are impeccable, and her cover of Hank Williams’ “Cold Cold Heart” might be the one reason I would ever take “Shh / Peaceful” off loop.  Also, Brian Blade plays exactly the right thing on drums each and every hit. He’s unbelievable.

Smashing Pumpkins | Siamese Dream

Jimmy Chamberlain is a drum god. You know the all the hits from this record, but listen to “Silverf*ck” again: it’ll remind you that you’re listening to divinity. And I can’t get over the production on this record—it’s unreal.

The Police | Zenyatta Mondatta

I have a hard time picking just one Police record: they’re all amazing. But this record is the last one where they still sound like a punk/ska/reggae hybrid to me: the records after this are much slicker and poppier. And I share a love of the song “Canary in a Coalmine” with my four-year-old daughter. We’ve danced around the room to that song since she was born.

kd lang | Ingenue

My wife had this record when we started dating like 25 years ago: it’s one of the lushest and gorgeous pop records I’ve ever heard. Lang’s phrasing and tonality is perfect. Just perfect.

Sly and the Family Stone | Fresh

The song “In Time” has one the earliest recordings that I know of to feature interplay between a drum machine and live drums. “Funky” doesn’t even start to get at what this sounds like – “otherworldly” is more like it.

The Walkmen | Bows and Arrows

This is a perfect indie record: raw, intense, and pissed. I saw them play chunks of it live in Denver in the mid-2000s to a half-empty room, and that show remains one the best I’ve ever witnessed in my life.

Miles Davis | My Funny Valentine

This record features drummer Tony Williams at his most amazing in a live show from the early ’60s. Check out this version of “All Blues”- and then start to weep.

Miles Davis | Big Fun

This isn’t that great of a record, actually. But it does feature a track called “Go Ahead John” with one of my favorite Jack DeJohnette drum performances of all time: his skitter-scatter drums ping back and forth across the stereo field for the whole song, like a fusion-soaked babbling brook. Pretty wild for 1974, I think—and it feels like a precursor to so much contemporary IDM music.

Missy Elliot | Under Construction

“Work It.” Timbaland. Need I say more?