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Video Interview: Chad Ross of Comet Control Talks Inside the Sun and More

Posted in Bootleg Theater, Features on September 16th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

comet control (Photo by Olde Night Rifter)

The third album from not-quite-Toronto’s Comet ControlInside the Sun (review here), came out on Aug. 24 in a partnership with Tee Pee Records that extends back to before Comet Control was a band. It is a record that is both consistent with the band’s two prior outings, 2016’s Center of the Maze (review here) and 2014’s self-titled debut (review here), and marked by change, finding upon its release that guitarist/vocalist Chad Ross and bassist Nicole Ross (née Howell) have relocated to Northern Ontario, and working on a home studio there while also parenting a soon-to-be-toddler. Meanwhile, the band has also restructured at least in its studio incarnation, with Andrew Moszynski moving from guitar to drums — Marco Mozin will handle the task live when/if that becomes a thing again — and Jay Lemak has taken over on keys. Oh and they built a studio for themselves too, but apparently that’s no big deal. They do it all the time.

Honestly, a new keyboardist would be enough change for most groups on one record — “Well, we’ve got a new keyboardist, so…” — but if you listen to Inside the Sun, it still sounds very much like Comet Control, and that aforementioned consistency comes from the partnership of Chad Ross and Andrew Moszynski, who’ve been working together since their days in acid explorers Quest for Fire. The foundation of that collab and the writing of both, as well as the pervasive melodicism and songcraft central to the band’s approach means that Inside the Sun is very much a third Comet Control album, and brings with it the sense of manifesting the essential aspects of their sound that one hopes a band who’ve now been at it for eight-plus years would be hitting toward. If I called it one of the year’s best records — it is — would that be enough summary?

Probably not, which is one more reason I wanted to talk to Ross about putting Inside the Sun together. And as we dug into the record, particularly the uptempo opener “Keep on Spinnin'” and the manner in which side B unfolds from there in lush fashion as it does, I grew more curious about the Ross/Moszynski writing as the core of Comet Control, especially as is pertained to their prior work in Quest for Fire, which is, if you listen to the two side-by-side, a different band. Ross discusses the divergent purposes between the two and the growth of Comet Control as its own thing, as well as where it might go in the unknowable future. In the more immediate, he’s also got a new solo record coming out next Spring under the moniker C. Ross, and if you ever dug into the stuff he released as Nordic Nomadic, you know that’s something to look forward to as well. I asked him outright for an early listen. Nothing yet, though he did tip me off to the new Dark Bird, and the Rick White & Eiyn Sof 2019 release, Secret River, Hidden Place, both of which are well worth searching out for the curious.

We spoke in the morning earlier this week, I in the wood paneling, he in the woods. The trees in his background were amazing, and he described going out there with an acoustic guitar and noodling around, which, yeah, made sense. How could you not?

Enjoy:

Comet Control, Inside the Sun Interview with Chad Ross, Sept. 13, 2021

Inside the Sun is available now through Tee Pee Records and streaming in full below. I’ll post more info on the forthcoming C. Ross album as I get it. More at the links.

Comet Control, Inside the Sun (2021)

Comet Control on Facebook

Comet Control on Instagram

Comet Control on Twitter

Comet Control on Bandcamp

Tee Pee Records on Facebook

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Tee Pee Records on Twitter

Tee Pee Records website

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Album Review: Comet Control, Inside the Sun

Posted in Reviews on August 23rd, 2021 by JJ Koczan

comet control inside the sun

Whether you would skip delightedly across planetary orbits like so many invisible jump ropes or drift serene through a sea of nebular gases, Comet Control are your one-stop shop. The prismatic Toronto space — the final frontier? yes! — adventurers built themselves a whole studio to make their third LP, and, well, it worked. Inside the Sun collects eight new tracks for the Tee Pee Records follow-up to 2016’s Center of the Maze (review here), running an immersive and at times peaceful but not at all staid 45 minutes across two well delineated sides of melodic psychedelia. Be it in opener “Keep on Spinnin'” or its side B counterpart title-track, wherein the drums of Andrew Moszynski (Marco Mozin fills the role live) punctuate in submotorik fashion an outbound shove of intention, or in later, less-or-un-percussed folkish stretches like “The Afterlife” and closer “The Deserter,” the last of which finds Jay Lemak‘s keys complemented by guest violin from Sophie Trudeau — who plays in Godspeed You! Black Emperor and, mathematically speaking, either is or is not related to the Canadian prime minister — Comet Control‘s depth of sound and flowing graciousness of craft comes across as the most crucial element of who they are.

They put the rockers up front, and the first sound one hears on “Keep on Spinnin'” is a wake-the-hell-up drum fill from Moszynski that stops dead before the guitars of founding principals Chad Ross (also vocals) and Andrew Moszynski kick in to lead the way out of the atmosphere on a rocket fueled by fuzz-laced shuffle, bass and drums the engine driving upward and outward as the keys add melodic flourish to the vocals, complementing the spaces between verse lines. It is a purposefully movement-minded, rhythmic leadoff. A statement. It does not reveal everything about Comet Control‘s intentions throughout Inside the Sun — it’s not a full summary or anything like that — but the facts that it’s one of two songs running over seven minutes long, that it starts the record, and that it’s the most active inclusion on it aren’t a coincidence. The band clearly wants to convey the feeling of motion, maybe even of being alive after five years of absence. One does not begrudge the boogie. And even as they move into a noisy wash in the song’s second half, only to stop dead once again and speak the single word “spinnin’,” they bring that keyboard line back around to top the reemergent push, and the melody’s never far off.

If it matters, everything that follows is slower to some degree — though I’m not about to compare BPMs with “Secret Life” (premiered here) to find how by how close the two are exactly — but side A remains uptempo, defined in no small part by its initial axial directive. The shaker-inclusive chug of “Welcome to the Wave” finds its verse tempting Rolling Stones comparisons, but the quick hook hints at mellower vibes to come, the song’s title-line arriving in the lines “Moving in and out of phase/Welcome to the wave,” later, the urging, “Go inside the wave,” just before the solo. It is bright in that wave, and duly undulating, but again, the rhythm section acts as the anchor, and that shaker’s right there the whole time, earning its place among the final elements to stand at the end of the track, cutting off before “Secret Life” — the shortest inclusion at 3:40 and another kick in pace, howling in guitar, punchy in snare, and right on for the duration — takes over, lead lines trilling like a theremin amid a spirit that feels near to garage rock but is fuller in its sound than anything so willfully raw. Somehow it’s a fitting point of dimensional shift to the more languid but still rolling “Good Day to Say Goodbye.”

comet control (Photo by Olde Night Rifter)

Taking Inside the Sun as a linear progression, the dream-keys and organ of “Good Day to Say Goodbye,” the nodding groove, bright melody and anchoring fuzz riff around which it’s based serves as a vital transition to what follows on the second half of the record. The longest song at 7:27, it also offers a reminder that Ross and Moszynski worked together in Quest for Fire before Comet Control‘s 2014 self-titled debut (review here), and is fair enough ground for them to cover, hitting a midpoint in tempo between the “Keep on Spinnin'” and “Secret Life” before and “The Afterlife” and “The Deserter” still to come while giving space — there’s that word again — for the title-track and the penultimate “Heavy Moments” to unfurl amid the lushness that surrounds. “Inside the Sun” itself feels broad because it is, guitars swirling by its end in a way that lets the listener know they’re not coming back this time, and that’s suitable to shift into the outright headphone-ready gorgeousness of “The Afterlife.” It is also how side B embodies the back-and-forth ethic of Inside the Sun on the whole. Where the first half of the album played off pace between fastest and middle gears, the second oozes further into drift the alternating pattern, especially in “The Deserter” at the finish, speaking to just how far Comet Control are ready to go.

Understand: there is no conflict in this. Even if it is a case of competing impulses in the writing, that doesn’t come through in the finished product, which is all the more to the band’s credit since they’re working in their own studio for the first time. Rather, the post-’90s-alt wistfulness in the guitar of “Heavy Moments” offers a smooth letting go into “The Deserter,” which unfolds with such patience as to make its relatively short four-and-half-minute runtime deceptive. Keys and effects swirl begin, vocals arrive, bass, drums follow gradually, the aforementioned violin becoming a part of the whole with marked ease. It is perhaps in these final minutes that Comet Control most reinforce what’s been uniting the material all along through the back and forth. Aside from the overarching course they’ve set into the ether, it is the melody that brings the songs together throughout Inside the Sun. Of course that’s not to take anything away from what the rhythm section does throughout in reinforcing the trajectory — that work is crucial to the impression made by the album as a whole and the individual tracks as pieces of it — but as they ebb and flow, Comet Control are no less purposeful in their soothing last stretch than they were in the outset’s relative intensity. It is the willingness to be beautiful that makes Inside the Sun so encompassing.

Comet Control, Inside the Sun (2021)

Comet Control on Facebook

Comet Control on Instagram

Comet Control on Twitter

Comet Control on Bandcamp

Tee Pee Records on Facebook

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Tee Pee Records website

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Comet Control Announce Inside the Sun out Aug. 27; Premiere “Secret Life”

Posted in audiObelisk, Whathaveyou on June 16th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

comet control (Photo by Olde Night Rifter)

Rejoice! Comet Control will release their third album, Inside the Sun, on Aug. 27 through the ever-vigilant Tee Pee Records. The first single “Secret Life” will be out on Friday — BUT — you can stream it right f’ing now because sometimes the universe lets not-horrible things happen. And when it does, it’s only right to take advantage. Song’s at the bottom of the post. I won’t begrudge you skipping the rest of this sentence to click play.

For anyone who stuck around, I’ll say that I got the record at the end of last week and I’ve been ‘spinning’ it — such as one does with a private stream — on steady rotation since. It’s eight tracks and 44 minutes of spuzzed-out-face-rock bliss, heavy and trippy and melodic melodic melodic all the way through. I don’t want to go too deep here, best to save some slathering for a review later on, but from the seven-minute rouse of opener “Keep on Spinnin'” down through the strut ‘n’ gaze of its hypnotic title-track and the cosmic ethereal folk of its closer, they answer 2016’s Center of the Maze (review here) on all fronts, backs and side to sides. Oh, I dig it.

Preorders are up now. Actually I think they were up yesterday, but shh!

Info from the PR wire:

comet control inside the sun

COMET CONTROL: Canadian Psych Rockers Set Controls for the Heart of the Sun with Blazing New Album

Inside the Sun by Comet Control will be released on 27th August via Tee Pee Records

Album preorder: https://teepeerecords.com/products/comet-control-inside-the-sun-out-8-27-21

Formed in Toronto in 2013, after the break-up of Chad Ross and Andrew Moszynski’s acclaimed outsider outfit, Quest for Fire, Comet Control requires little introduction to anyone well-versed in the realms of contemporary psych.

After hashing out ideas for a new record following a European tour with Earthless in 2018, Ross and Moszynski escaped down the rabbit hole of their own Palace Sound Studio, to write and record new material. Material that will be unveiled this summer with the release of the band’s third studio album, Inside the Sun, on New York’s legendary underground label, Tee Pee Records.

Alongside bassist and fellow founder Nicole Ross, drummer Marco Moniz, keyboardist Jay Lemak and Godspeed You Black Emperor’s Sophie Trudeau, Comet Control form what is arguably one of the most kinetic and dynamic rock bands in recent memory. Drawing on a cosmic well laced with the imposing riffs of Dead Meadow and Sacri Monti, the motorik grooves of Krautrock, and those dimly lit passages of noise synonymous with the European shoegaze of Spiritualized and Ride, they are a phenomenal band, both on record and on stage. As anyone who has witnessed them live in support of acts like Boris, Black Mountain, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Vibravoid will attest.

Produced by Ross and Moszynski and recorded and mixed by Steve Chahley (U.S. Girls), Inside the Sun by Comet Control will be officially released on 27th August via Tee Pee Records. Pre-order the album here (digital) – https://orcd.co/cometcontrol

“‘Secret Life’ is a song that Andrew pretty much had in his head. He recorded the drums in one or two takes by memory and we moved quickly through the rest, never overthinking anything. Andrew and I have been collaborating for a long time now, and even though we’re usually on our own trips, we always seem to meet musically in the most unknown, perfect places.” Chad Ross

TRACK LISTING:
1. Keep on Spinnin’
2. Welcome to the Wave
3. Secret Life
4. Good Day to Say Goodbye
5. Inside the Sun
6. The Afterlife
7. Heavy Moments
8. The Deserter

COMET CONTROL:
Andrew Moszynski – Guitar
Chad Ross – Vocals, Guitar
Nicole Ross – Bass
Marco Moniz – Drums
Jay Lemak – Keyboards
Sophie Trudeau – Violin (Guest Musician)

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https://cometcontrol.bandcamp.com/
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Comet Control, “Secret Life” track premiere

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