by Post-Trash Staff (@post_trash_)
Poorly Drawn House are a trio from Spartanburg, South Carolina that create an intricate blend of slowcore and post-rock, with lush dynamics and creeping tension. Their latest album, Home Doesn’t Have Four Walls, released earlier this week, is built on patience and texture, with every note ringing out its full sustain. The vocals are often spoken and poetic, slowly unfolding like a surrealist fever dream. Out now via Candlepin Records, Poorly Drawn House were kind enough to share some of the influences that lead to Home Doesn’t Have Four Walls with us.
Give the record a listen below and see what music helped bring it all into being, from Unwound and Duster to Talk Talk and Hood.
Duster:
Duster was the first to inspire us to start this band when we were in high-school. When we first started making music we were influenced by Duster from a production standpoint. We used 4 track tape machines to record songs with slow tempos and hush vocals. We are still in the process of learning to replicate the amazing tone of the guitars in Duster’s Contemporary Movement. Everything we have done started with copying Duster. Through them, we found other amazing bands who also influenced our sound.
Hood:
Hood is the child of Bark Psychosis, musically speaking. Hood introduced us to open spoken poetry and subtle details in production. They had a huge impact on the use of horns and other instruments but also the strive to keep experimenting and living within a world we can create through sound. The imagery and lyricism from Rustic Houses, Forlorn Valleys impacted us the most after Duster’s Stratosphere. They give us this raw feeling of struggle between man and technology that I don’t think many bands can illustrate like they can.
Talk Talk:
Talk Talk's Laughing Stock is full of contrast between quiet and loud dynamics, something we are still trying to imitate. They hold the dream drum sound for us and also inspire us through their improvisation over vague chords and notes. The combo of jazz and rock they create still blows our minds. We want the timeless sound of Laughing Stock to also be embodied in our music. They are the grandfather of a lot of our favorite bands and one of the greatest groups we've ever heard.
Bark Psychosis:
Bark Psychosis is the child of Talk Talk. Bark Psychosis’ Hex was the first album to introduce us to post-rock. Songs like "Fingerspit" with the smashing piano and quiet eerie vocals gave us tons of imagery we wanted to use in our own way. We had never heard anything like them before at the time--they seemed to live in their own world. Their use of instruments beyond the basic rock combinations taught us that we can use whatever we want, including melodica, trumpet, and strings. Our bassist is heavily influenced by their amazing bass lines.
Pretend:
Pretend is still one of the most underrated bands, Pretend has shown us the complexities of music. We are not very “talented” musicians by traditional standards, everything we do is by intuition and raw instinct mostly. Pretend recently has been inspiring us to use a metronome, play in different time signatures, and be more tight and controlled. But at the same time be free within guidelines to create something really special. Out of all the bands we are influenced by, they hold our dream vocals. Their influence will definitely show more in our future music.
Unwound:
The post-hardcore band, Unwound got us more in tune with our angst and aggression. These past few years have been tough for us with Covid and their music has been there for us through a lot of angry feelings. We have gotten a little more aggressive with some of our new songs and a lot of that came from them. Leaves Fall Inside You was a major inspiration for a lot of studio effects we use.
Storm & Stress:
The most important band to us as of recently is probably Storm & Stress, for their music, but mostly for their guts to really put something out there that nobody would ever think of doing or maybe even listen to. We admire how they pursue an artistic endeavor without an end goal of self-profit and popularity and instead push for personal experimentation. We want to imitate how Storm & Stress create sound-scapes with guitar textures and abstract lyricism, but mostly we want to imitate their unique ability to throw off the constraints of traditionally composed music and pursue genuine exploration of sound and rhythm.