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“Star Rover, the Brooklyn twosome of guitarist Will Graefe and drummer Jeremy Gustin, specializes in an alluring sort of pastoral punk that suggests a collaboration between Deerhoof and John Fahey.“- Time Out New York

Star Rover is finishing up a new album. Lately, they’ve been busy collaborating with Petra Haden, Sam Amidon, Lars Horntveth (Jaga Jazzist), Okkervil River, Sam Evian (Celestial Shore), Lazar Davis (Cuddle Magic). They also recently recorded with Brazilian singer Tiago Iorc, and you can hear one of those songs, “Dia Especial”, right here.

For their debut album as Star Rover, guitarist Will Graefe (Landlady, Jesse Harris, Larkin Grimm) and drummer Jeremy Gustin (Delicate Steve, Marc Ribot, Albert Hammond, Jr.) began with the music of John Fahey and ended up in their own corner of a skewed, over-driven, weird America. Western Winds, Bitter Christians is available now from FYO Records.

Star Rover’s original compositions use John Fahey’s guitar playing as a launching point for interstellar explorations. Those 6 strings, kick, snare, tom, and cymbals separate and recombine, lead and accompany, and alternately push and pull the time with incredible variety. Rhythmic drive comes as often from Will Graefe’s guitar as it does from the drum set; Jeremy Gustin’s languid drumming is full of song-like melodies; and a casually precise blend of kick drum and low guitar strings provides ample bass-register harmonic grounding.

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When they first met, Kristin Slipp and Cole Kamen-Green were 18 and 19, respectively. One of was from a dead-end street in a small town in rural Maine. The other had spent a childhood splitting time Manhattan and Ossining, NY. The two met in Boston when they joined a band called Cuddle Magic, a chamber pop band that was recently called pop music’s. “best-kept secret.”

Like Cuddle Magic, Slipp and Kamen-Green initially kept their new project a secret to everyone, including their closest friends. They got together at night in a pagoda-style mansion in South Brooklyn where Kristin lived in the attic, and for a year chipped away at a body of work, much of which would eventually become their new release. The quasi-clandestine nature and dark setting of these midnight meetings found its way into the music, resulting in a distinct sound that features undulating low frequencies combined with ecstatic vocal melodies, sizzling analog synthesizers, and a multitude of sounds that feel esoteric yet vaguely familiar.

Together and separately, the two have written and recorded with Beyonce, performed with Cyndi Lauper and Kimbra, soloed with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, run marathons, caught fish, made beats with Yuka C. Honda, crashed weddings, performed Music for 18 Musicians under direction of the composer, gone to raves, sung a concert of unaccompanied music for four voices at Carnegie Hall, been accidentally baptized, swum in the Hudson, toured around the U.S. and Europe, taught underprivileged kids to be producers, and lent their musicianship to a hundred different albums. Today, Kristin and Cole are MMEADOWS.