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| DYNAMIC DUO: The New Year’s Matt and Bubba Kadane. photography courtesy of Courtesy Touch And Go Records |
The brothers Kadane, Matt and Bubba, have long been respected for their intricate song craft, first with Bedhead and now with The New Year. Yet they have never gotten as much attention as they should have.
Even to those who have been paying attention, their recently released self-titled third record (as The New Year) is likely to surprise. For one thing, it includes “The Idea of You,” “the best guitar-based rock recording that we’ve ever put on tape,” Bubba says. Not a total surprise: The New Year, and Bedhead before it, came to be known for its signature three-guitar attack. This time, though, there is a heavier emphasis on piano—the instrument Matt grew up playing. If it doesn’t quite turn the Kadanes’ formula on its head, it allows it to be appreciated from a new angle. “We were completely satisfied with that model for a long time,” Bubba says. “But at the same time, you start to want to try other things, as a songwriting tool as much as anything.” The result is a stunner of an album, familiar and different at once, like a best friend you’ve lost touch with for a few years.
The brothers have also changed their approach to their music in a more tangible way. Live shows have always been in short supply. Not anymore. They’re in the middle of their longest trek to date, almost three full months. “It’s kind of hit me, now that they’ve all sort of been announced, ‘What have we done?’ ” Bubba says, laughing. Bubba recently took a less hands-on role with ACME Manufacturing Co. (the CD/DVD production company he founded with Mark Elliott in 1997) and Matt, an assistant professor of history at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York, had a sabbatical semester already planned. But to hear Bubba tell it, they might have rearranged their schedules anyway.
“I’ve never felt more like going all-out on a record until this one, really,” he says. “I think this might actually amount to something.” Here’s hoping.
