It's been ten years since Martyn Leaper and Robert Schneider collaborated and introduced the Minders to the world with the 7-inch Come On and Hear!!--and with the release of the band's fourth full-length Bright, Guilty World on Future Farmer Recordings, things have come full-circle. While each of them has been busy all these years forging separate yet like-minded paths in the pop music landscape (Robert, of course, is leader of the Apples in Stereo and founder of the Elephant 6 collective), Martyn realized that he once again needed his friend's assistance—this time to help him craft his most ambitious record to date.
Robert flew from Denver to Portland, Ore., and ended up recording half of the basic tracks on Martyn's MTR90 24-track machine. "It was his innate positivism that got the record rolling, and I was extremely excited to have him working with us again, to say the least," says Martyn. With bandmates Rebecca Cole (keyboards, vocals) and Joel Burrows (drums) on board as usual, the Minders kick-started Bright, Guilty World into action.
The title is gleaned from the 1947 Orson Welles film Lady From Shanghai, with "it's a bright, guilty world" being the words Welles speaks just before he's asked to commit murder. "I thought that it was appropriate and posed a perfect frame for this project," explains Martyn.
After the quick and breezy opener, "There Goes My Formula," the record launches into the incisive and energized "Don't You Stop." With the pointed words of Orson Welles leading the track, Martyn belts out, "It's a bright and guilty world we live in / and every single smile you see has got to be kidding." Written three years ago--just after the band was dropped by SpinArt Records--"Don't You Stop" was inspired by Martyn's disillusionment with the music business. It's an exceedingly clever, catchy, and spiteful lament; nonetheless, he soon realized he had even grander ideas and themes for the record. "I didn't want this record to be a rant about the woes of a lowly four-tracker," he explains. "I actually began to think of writing a record devoted to relationships and the struggle of love and life."
A few of the resulting tracks, "Crest of the Hill," "Savour All These Days," and "Remember, Remember," were recorded with Larry Crane (of Tape Op fame) at Jackpot Studios. With Crane's concise, solid production style added to the proceedings, the band went a few steps further, bringing friend and fellow Portlander Zach Ochen from the Kingdom and Invisible to co-produce "Remember, Remember" and "357," and Jim Fairchild from Grandaddy to play lead guitar on "Savour All These Days."
2004's The Future's Always Perfect was a departure for the band, seeing them stretching their sonic palette, while also becoming more playful and confident. Bright, Guitly World expands on the new-found possibilities that record provided them, resulting in their grandest, most beautifully rendered collection of songs yet. It took some friends to coax it out of them, but the Minders made a classic.
