“So Excited” By Cola

After announcing their break up in 2021, Ought members Tim Darcy and Ben Stidworthy, recently announced a new project with U.S. Girls/The Weather Station drummer Evan Cartwright called Cola. The trio have announce their debut LP Deep In View, will be released via Next Door Records on May 20, 2022 and share its first single “So Excited”.

Darcy explains:

“We would talk about this track as the ‘capstone’ of the Cola record. It was that song that we would warm up with and get tight on since it was one of the first to really come together, plus it’s fun to play. There are Cola songs of mine that predate this one but this was the one I was working on when Ben told me he was going to come back from grad school and we talked about jamming together. It clicked when we played it out with Evan and from there we decided to work on songs for a new project.

The first song Tim showed me, I had this special bassline which I had been playing at Ought soundchecks and was saving for the right moment,” Stidworthy adds. “It fit perfectly in the first phrase of the chorus and felt like it was a sign.”

“Deep In View is Titled after philosopher Alan Watts’ anthology of the same name, the record is built on a foundation of elegant guitar grooves and knotty rhythms, offering commentary on modern life and technology through curious lyrical vignettes, where quotidian objects and scenes are never just as they seem. Deep In View is equally a product of introspective songwriting as it is a consideration of the abstract landmarks of an increasingly media-mediated society”.

Cola started collaborating in fall 2019 when Darcy and Stidworthy, both formerly of Ought, reached out to their friend Cartwright, who they had frequently met on the road while he was drumming with various other projects. “It wasn’t the post-Ought band right off the bat,” Darcy says, “we really just took time to enjoy the process of collaborating and writing songs together.” The band’s organic chemistry solidified quickly after a few sessions of jamming in-person. Then, as the pandemic began, they were forced to decamp and write songs separately. Working in solitude ended up becoming a “defining color as well as a barrier” to the album, says Darcy. He notes that he wrote the lyrics to “Fulton Park” as a “dream landscape”, a sort of alternative to the frustration and depression he was experiencing at the time.

The imposed isolation of writing at home led Stidworthy (who helped compose the album’s guitar parts and plays the piano on “Landers”) to “create little worlds with the songs”. The keen brushstrokes of all three members combined feels languidly tactile, replete with profound meaning that is almost archeological in its sense of economy and personal touch. This sense of relaxed exploration could only occur because of the mutual trust between the trio: Stidworthy adds, “I could go really far in cultivating a mood for a demo and send it to them and know that it could only improve.” Meanwhile, Cartwright (who also plays guitar on the project and coded Supercollider synth parts in the studio), found that he was subliminally incorporating drum ideas and patterns from when he first started playing as a teen, embedded deep in his muscle memory.

Cola
Deep In View
Track List
Next Door Records

1. Blank Curtain
2. So Excited
3. At Pace
4. Met Resistance
5. Degree
6. Water Table
7. Gossamer
8. Mint
9. Fulton Park
10. Landers

Cola 2022 Tour Dates

03.12 – Chicago, IL @ Sleeping Village
06.20 – Winooski, VT @ Monkey House
06.21 – Boston, MA @ Sonia’s
06.22 – Kingston, NY @ Tubby’s
06.23 – Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right
06.24 – Philadelphia, PA @ Kung Fu Necktie
06.25 – Washington, DC @ DC9
06.27 – Raleigh, NC @ Cat’s Cradle (Back Room)
06.28 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
06.29 – Nashville, TN @ DRKMTTR
07.01 – Dallas, TX @ Ruins
07.02 – Austin, TX @ The Parish
07.05 – Phoenix, AZ @ The Rebel Lounge
07.06 – San Diego, CA @ Soda Bar
07.07 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo
07.08 – San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop
07.10 – Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
07.11 – Vancouver, BC @ The Biltmore
07.12 – Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern
07.14 – Boise, ID @ Neurolux
07.16 – Denver, CO @ Hi-Dive
07.18 – Omaha, NE @ Slowdown
07.19 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St. Entry
07.20 – Milwaukee, WI @ Cactus Club
07.21 – Chicago, IL @ Sleeping Village
07.22 – Detroit, MI @ Magic Bag
8.20 – Crickhowell, UK @ Green Man Festival
8.23 – Brighton, UK @ Prince Albert
8.24 – London, UK @ Moth Club
8.25 – Birmingham, UK @ Hare & Hounds
8.26 – Bristol, UK @ Rough Trade Bristol
8.27 – Birkenhead, UK @ Future Yard
8.28 – Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club
8.30 – Edinburgh, UK @ Sneaky Pete’s
8.31 – Glasgow, UK @ Broadcast
9.1 – Newcastle UK @ The Cluny 2
9.2 – Nottingham, UK @ Rough Trade
9.3 – Manchester, UK @ Manchester Psych Fest (Yes)
9.4 – Salisbury, UK @ End of the Road Festival