It was thanks to a reader that we got to hear of this low profile release which is currently being given away as a free download on CD Baby. Early Alan Younger‘s debut EP The Hotcake Waltz is difficult to pin down, giving some crediblity to the apt description “from the ground up”. He has no doubt been maturing his own brand of folk rock in southern Minneapolis for some time where he has remained a pretty much a solo recording artist for most of his life. It holds a free-style approach which I love and it is gloriously lo-fi in the truest sense of the word. The first name he brought to mind was the inventive Patrick Porter just for that shared anarchic feel I get when listening to it, he’s no pretender.
All five tracks had no bass or drums written before recording. The first and second take of each recording (bass and drums) are kept to give the EP a live and organic sound. Aaron LeMay of Diver Dress on drums and Tony Najm (bass) make up the backbone of this folk rock EP
Who knows where he’s going to take this but I liked it from first listen.