Yesterday, in an attempt to assemble the necessary funding to press their next full-length to vinyl, Brooklyn-based heavy psych/doom trio Eggnogg launched a Kickstarter campaign. The album they’re looking to press is called You’re all Invited, and it’ll be the youngin’ act’s third behind 2010′s The Three, 2011′s excellent Moments in Vacuum (review here) and the two EPs Nogg and this summer’s Louis (review here). Atmospherically, Eggnogg‘s songs vary almost on a track-by-track basis — as Louis demonstrates — but overall, the band’s sound is forged in weighted doom tonality, stoner-funk groove, grunge-derived melodies and a quirky psychedelic oddness that’s fast becoming a defining element.

Underneath it all, however, is a core of strangely infectious songwriting. Eggnogg tracks are slow burners, but before too long, you find yourself humming along to bassist/vocalist Bill O’Sullivan‘s guttural bluesy delivery, or nodding along to any number of Justin Karol‘s riffy hooks. O’Sullivan and Karol (who also provides the band’s distinct artwork) make up the creative core of the band, but drummer Ryan Quinn has a large role to play as well, holding together their extended jams — and no doubt that will remain true on You’re all Invited as well, the first side of which is a five-part, 22-minute single track.

While raking in the dough necessary to press the album and preparing to send out a slew of donation gifts (including, for someone who pledges two grand, eating every item on a McDonald’s menu), Eggnogg will also be performing alongside Borracho, Valley of the Sun, Summoner and Shock Radar at Heavy Planet’s CMJ showcase, set to take place Oct. 18 at Fontana’s in Manhattan. In light of that, the Kickstarter, the band’s affection for song titles that end in “-og,” and the recent Brooklyn gig I was lucky enough to catch, it seemed only too prudent to hit up O’Sullivan with Six Dumb Questions, so that’s exactly what I did.

You’ll find his responses below. Please enjoy:

1. Tell me about how the band got together. When did you move from Utica to Brooklyn, and how did you get started jamming?

Justin, Quinn and I attended the same school from first grade onward, and in ninth grade we started jamming together, playing under the name Armada. Armada played instrumental compositions that Justin and I had wrote, but it wasn’t long before I started writing lyrics, and we decided to take on the new name GonZo to reflect the change in our sound. GonZo played throughout high school, and during this time we wrote a lot of the songs that we would later record and release as EGGNOGG.

By searching the internet, we realized too many musical acts were using the name Gonzo and that we needed to differentiate ourselves. In 2009 we decided to rename ourselves EGGNOGG (GonZo reversed is Oznog, which sounded close enough to Eggnog, to which we added an extra “g” for symmetry). The record that was initially going to be titled GonZo Demo III was retitled EGGNOGG’s The Three.

In August 2009 I moved from the Utica, New York, area to Brooklyn. I returned to Central New York State for the summer of 2010, during which time we recorded Moments in Vacuum. Operating a band at such a distance was very straining at times, but we persevered and managed to finish our second album, as well as the Nogg EP and most of Louis during that period, despite the inconvenience. Justin moved down to New York City in May of 2012, and since then we’ve been hard at work completing our new album, You’re all Invited. We’ve got the band going full-force again, centered down here in Brooklyn now.

2. What was the recording process for the Louis EP? Are you aware that the three opening songs on the releases since the first EP have rhymed with the band’s name? Is that on purpose, and was there anything you wanted to do differently with Louis than you did on Moments in Vacuum? Is there a particular Louis the EP is named for?

Justin and Quinn tracked the drums and some of the guitars for Louis Upstate in the Spring of 2012, and we did the rest down here in Bushwick. Most of the songs on Louis were written during the GonZo days, and we took the opportunity to rerecord them knowing what we know now.

Interestingly enough, the song “Baras Mogg” was a live staple of ours back in 2006, long before we ever had the idea to name ourselves EGGNOGG. The song title “Bog” is a Nadsat word, and “Magog” is a biblical figure. A historical ancestor of mine was named Morty Og O’Sullivan. So maybe the “og” is in my blood — it’s an interesting syllable to me, and the choice to name the band EGGNOGG had nothing to do with the word’s meaning, but rather, its phonetic sound.

Louis was intended to be a much shorter, easier listen than Moments in Vacuum. Louis is named after our old bassist from the GonZo days.

3. Each Eggnogg release seems to have its own personality. Not that they’re all so different, but it in listening, you can hear different sides of the band’s sound being played up, either consciously or not. What’s in store for You’re all Invited?

We don’t want to repeat ourselves. I’ve always made a conscious effort to write music that sounds new to me, and I have no interest in writing songs that sound the same. Each album has its own sound, and we are always trying to do something new while making sure that it fits within the context of our previous work. I think we’ve succeeded in doing this with You’re all Invited.

You’re all Invited is very heavy — in my opinion, the heaviest music we’ve made so far. But like our other albums, it will have a lot dynamics, and plenty of laid back, melodic parts to contrast with the sludgy riffs. The whole record will flow together and transition smoothly, as if it were all one extended piece. This is different from Moments in Vacuum, I think, because with Moments in Vacuum, every song had a very definite beginning and end, and each song brought a particular style. Each song on You’re all Invited will exhibit many different styles from beginning to end, but the changes will unfold very naturally, like a story.

4. Will you tour at all in support of the new album? Any other shows coming up after the Heavy Planet CMJ gig in October?

No other shows booked at this moment, but we’re looking to play plenty of shows this year around New York and the Tri-State Area.

5. When will the Kickstarter for the vinyl pressing of You’re all Invited be up? Will you put the album on CD as well?

We just launched the Kickstarter campaign, and it will last 30 days. I don’t see any reason to do a CD release of You’re all Invited, because as a music fan, I’d much rather have a vinyl. But there is no reason for anyone to worry: every purchase of the vinyl will come with a free download of the album, and the album will be available for a paid download as well (via PalaverRecords.com). So people will be able to get the album in a digital form. In my opinion, the resurgence of vinyls and the ease of transferring music over the internet is making CDs obsolete.

But for people who still prefer the CD medium, I have good news. We’re finally going to put out the Nogg EP and Louis EP on CD. They will be combined on one disc, and this new Apocrypha compilation will be released as a reward for Kickstarter donations.

6. Any other plans or closing words you want to mention?

We’re really counting on the success of this Kickstarter campaign, because we wouldn’t be able to come up with the money to make the vinyls by ourselves. Help us get this new album off the ground, and you’ll get some good stuff in return.

Eggnogg’s You’re all Invited Kickstarter Campaign

Eggnogg on Thee Facebooks

Eggnogg at Palaver Records

To hold a place between 2011’s Moments in Vacuum full-length and the forthcoming You’re all Invited long-player due out this fall, Brooklyn heavy psych trio Eggnogg release the four-song Louis EP through Palaver Records and continue to refine their approach to funky rhythms and heavy riffs. In the time since Moments in Vacuum was issued, bassist/vocalist Bill O’Sullivan also released his first solo album — Phillip’s Head, also on Palaver – and based around two shorter tracks and two longer ones, Louis makes a strong follow-up to Moments in Vacuum, continuing Eggnogg’s penchant for quirk and making deceptively complex stylistic turns sound both natural and smooth. As was the album, the subsequent EP is roughly produced, playing up Justin Karol’s cassette-ready grunge guitar into an aesthetic choice to go alongside the surprisingly prevalent bass of O’Sullivan and the still lo-fi drumming of Ryan Quinn. When O’Sullivan comes in particularly as EP opener “Baras Mogg,” the effect of the band’s dynamic sound is startling, and by that I mean that the quiet parts are so quiet they trick you into turning the volume up and then the rumble kicks in and Eggnogg bludgeon you with thickened tonality and massive lumbering riffage. The first time it happens, there’s hardly a hint given that it’s coming, such is the trance the far-back drums, guitar, bass and O’Sullivan’s crooning puts you into while listening. Wah persists through bluesy guitar and it’s just before two minutes into the song’s total 8:31 that the chorus lands its first weighted blow. They trade off again into quiet, but especially after a few listens, that chorus proves infectious on almost a primal level, O’Sullivan switching to more of a shout and playing off contradictions in the lyrics, “Sing on high, I think I’ll sing it low,” etc., while Quinn slams hard on his low-mixed, compressed-sounding cymbals and Karol holds notes so long you can hear the waves in their sustain for each line.

Instead of a third cycle, they break into a quiet solo section that leads to an onslaught of undulating riffing, topped by more echoey shouts and an irresistible bounce. Already “Baras Mogg” is six minutes in and it seems to still be establishing its course, which, almost naturally, Eggnogg promptly abandons. That post-solo pounding is basically the apex, but then the trio just rumbles into oblivion over the course of the next couple minutes, checking in here and there on a riff (see 7:19), but never committing fully to one direction or another. If it wasn’t so clearly on purpose, or so the beat wasn’t so well sustained by Quinn, it might fall flat, but the last minute seems almost to be headed toward driving home an ending riff, and then, gleefully, they chug out a measure and end “Baras Mogg” cold, giving Louis a start that’s delightfully unpredictable despite telegraphing most of the moves it’s making. Karol, O’Sullivan and Quinn continue to expand their scope on the brief but maddeningly funky “Vermicious Knidds,” which sounds as much like Seas of Cheese-era Primus as its title might suggest and its opening Twin Peaks sample might contradict. Thickened guitar squibbles, tom rolls and what sounds an awful lot like slap-bass ensues for a quick 2:23, but though the song is short, its effect on the overall atmosphere of Louis is much more lasting, bringing a lighthearted, fun feel to the heaviness that “Baras Mogg” proffered. It too ends abruptly, but works well feeling into the nine-minute “The Squid/The Fandangler,” which continues the Primus-vibing as O’Sullivan starts the song off on bass before Karol’s guitar and Quinn’s drums kick in. A verse is quickly established that sets up the EP’s most driving chorus – the opening line, “Here’s the way it goes,” seeming very much to be indicate of Eggnogg’s commanding directionality – and as with “Baras Mogg,” verse and chorus are cycled through twice (a solo between acts as bridge) before a longer break is embarked on. In this case, it’s a plotted kind of jam that sounds pieced together from improvised parts to have a build.

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Since I started the Album of the Summer of the Week feature five weeks ago now, we’ve talked a lot about the heat, about the sunshine, about the Jersey humidity that rests itself between the ground and the sky and seems like it’s never going to leave. I’ve written more about the weather in the last month than I could’ve ever imagined I would when I started this site.

But one thing I haven’t covered yet in the AotSotW (which is the acronym by which I refer to it on my to-do list) is what to do for a summer night. Sure, there’s always Sabbath, and I highly recommend that as well, but one album that’s come to my mind several times over the last few weeks is last year’s Moments in Vacuum (review here), by Brooklyn heavy psych upstarts Eggnogg. It’s perfect for these hot-as-hell summer nights.

Let’s say, for example, you’re sitting in the yard, maybe drunk, maybe sober, and you’ve got the bug zapper going in the background. Purely hypothetical situation — not at all something that happened to me this weekend. You’ve got a couple good friends there. The temperature’s finally broke after a bout of rain, and here comes Eggnogg to round out the night perfectly with eight tracks of unrepentant lo-fi riffing, ’90s style moaning vocals and periodic bursts of all out doom. Whether it’s the odd compression in the cymbals of the 12-minute “Wheel of the Year” or the slowed-down, somehow-’80s boogie of “Raking in the Dough,” Eggnogg‘s Moments in Vacuum has so much space in the recording that it’s great for rounding out an evening on a low key but still rocking kind  of vibe. You could do a hell of a lot worse than the dual-layered solos at the end of “Cydonia” before crashing out.

Something else working in Moments in Vacuum‘s favor is that it’s long. At 74 minutes, you can put it on and know that you don’t have to worry about chasing down another disc — because, yes, while you’re sitting in the yard with the bug zapper and a nightcap and a few good friends, you play CDs in this totally hypothetical alternate universe — and even as the title-track comes to an end and you think it’s over, you’ve still got the 15:15 of “Rhythmic Past” to go. It’s got enough variety of mood that whether you’re partying or winding down, it fits, and most of all, it kicks ass. You know that’s always a plus.

Check out “Wheel of the Year” below and wait for the sun to go down:

Good news for enthusiasts of The Nogg in that they’ve got a new EP out now called Louis. More info at the Palaver Records site.

In 74 minutes, you can get on a plane in New York and end up 220 miles north in Boston. The distance Brooklyn haze rockers Eggnogg cover in that time is no less expansive. Their second full-length, Moments in Vacuum (Palaver Records) compiles eight mostly-extended tracks drawn together by consistency in the production that seem to nudge their way into a variety of riffy subgenre classifications. Only “Raking in the Dough” (4:32) and the thickened three-minute noisefest “One Monster’s Confession” are under eight minutes, but Moments in Vacuum is immersive enough to live up to its title and justifies its length by unfolding in two distinct halves. It’s almost like Eggnogg – who made their debut with 2010’s The Three and followed with their Nogg EP – compiled two smaller releases each with an individual mindset and set about making them flow as a whole. It’s not quite a split with themselves, but the album does take a turn in its middle following “Nebuchadnezzar” that is striking on repeat listens. The first couple times through, one might not notice or simply wake up from the trance at the end of 15-minute closer “Rhythmic Past” and only then realize how much of a journey one has made. Eggnogg have a natural sound brought out by the recording job of guitarists Justin Karol and Bill O’Sullivan – the latter who also handles the surprisingly diverse vocals – and as Moments in Vacuum gradually gets darker atmospherically leading to the end, that feel is ultimately what keeps the band on track.

Foremost, they’re heavy. In their more intense moments, as on opener “Magog,” O’Sullivan lets loose gruff shouts from the bottom of a canyon that still seems to be higher than the subterranean tone of his and Karol’s guitars and bass. Drummer Ryan Quinn’s task is made somewhat easier by the repetitive nature of some of Eggnogg’s riffs, but when “Magog” slams into a slowdown after five minutes in and the first of Moments in Vacuum’s several samples is introduced, he’s able to hold the time and pacing together and keep his cohorts from spiraling out of control. Nonetheless, the fuzz is overbearing. Hairy, even. Eggnogg play through an aural fog of unabashed burnoutism that’s a stirring reminder of how long ago we all should’ve dropped out of life. The line “sock it to me” sampled from the tv show Laugh-In ends “Magog” and turns out to be a theme running through the first couple tracks. Eggnogg underscore the groove with “Raking in the Dough,” which is essentially a funk song built around a single progression and strummed-out chorus, but righteously catchy all the same. As the opening verse unfolds with the lines, “I understand/Financial man/Knows what he wants and gets it he flaunts it/Sees it all go to plan” before the repeated chorus of “It’s alright I’m raking in dough,” it’s probably Moments in Vacuum’s most directly blues-based stretch. O’Sullivan carries it with a throaty but laid back vocal, and simultaneous left/right channel guitar soloing leads into stoner grooving that would make Brant Bjork proud. Once again, “sock it to me” closes.

As both “Wheel of the Year” and “Nebuchadnezzar” reach close to 12 minutes, they mark the point at which Moments in Vacuum really becomes hypnotic. It’s a hard album to sit through and analyze on a per-song basis, because the overall experience of zoning out to it is so much a part of what makes listening enjoyable. “Wheel of the Year” starts out with a soft guitar interlude/intro and gradually moves into a riff that could be called slow until Eggnogg really hits the brakes tempo-wise on the album’s second half. Still, the song seems to lurch its way into its last third, which picks up thanks to a fast riff and some Sabbathian beat-keeping from Quinn behind the guitar lead. The swagger Eggnogg pull off at the end of “Wheel of the Year” sets the table well for the sleepy warmth of “Nebuchadnezzar,” which isn’t as fuzzed-out as a song like “Magog” or the latter part of the closer still to come, but no less engaging for its laid back sway. Once again, O’Sullivan suits his vocals to the cause, and though the increase in tempo that comes on later in the song would lead to some structural comparisons between “Nebudchadnezzar” and “Wheel of the Year” – maybe rightly so – Eggnogg take the song to a different place stylistically and Moments in Vacuum doesn’t repeat itself in any way that isn’t intended on the part of the band. Certainly, as “One Monster’s Confession” shifts the feel of the record into something darker and wholly more doom-based, redundancy isn’t a concern. The abrasiveness Eggnogg show there is echoed later in the huge riffing and screams that top the finale, but “One Monster’s Confession” is still probably their darkest moment. Something about the bass tone reminds of the inhuman extremity of Godflesh, but of course the context surrounding is entirely less lucid.

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