S. LaBate

S. LaBate’s “New Year’s Dissolution” is a slice of ’60s girl group-inspired power-pop filtered through lo-fi punk & indie rock—a rose-colored meditation on a lifelong crush that's finally consummated one New Year’s Eve before burning up in a flash.

A collaboration between LaBate & producer Evan Mui (Surfer Blood, Jolie Holland, David Pajo), the song was recorded at Weathervane Sound in L.A. with LaBate on vocals, guitars & castanets (a nod to Ronettes classic “Be My Baby”) & Mui filling out the rest.

With its out-front percussion, layered guitars, double-tracked vocals, heartbeat kickdrum & orchestrated noise, it's a drier, more modern take on Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, the reverberations of which LaBate feels daily living so close to the old site of Spector's Gold Star Studios.

“I'm in Hollywood, right down the street from where he recorded all those hits. I drive past it all the time and I like to think the music seeps into my brain. Of course, Spector was a monster—literally a convicted murderer. It’s strange how someone so vile produced some of the most beautiful music ever.”

As subtly intricate as the production is on “New Year’s Dissolution, it's a simple three-chord song. "Same as those old girl group hits, which were punk at their core," LaBate says. "You can trace a direct line from those songs to The Ramones. Come to think of it, Phil Spector once held a gun to Dee Dee Ramone’s head while he was recording a bass part. So it’s all pretty much full circle."