Following the release of a couple of superb albums and a slew of EPs celebrating a classic late 70s/early 80s power pop sound, Kurt Baker relocated from Portland, Maine to Madrid. New horizons brought new inspirations and Baker joined pop punk/power pop band Bullet Proof Lovers and also formed a new band, The Kurt Baker Combo. Although the Combo still worshipped good old power pop, their sound was a little harder around the edges than the previous Kurt Baker Band, injecting Baker’s songwriting with a touch of garage rock. This was most obvious on the Combo’s second release – 2018’s ‘Let’s Go Wild’ – where a desire for fuzzy energies sometimes came at the expense of some great melodies.
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Watch ‘So Lonely’, the new video from the Kurt Baker Combo
There’s a new Kurt Baker Combo album on the horizon. ‘Let’s Go Wild’ explores some new territory for the singer-songwriter and his band, moving further away from the usual power pop tropes and deeper into garage rock. For those who love it rough and ready but still crave a big hook, the album serves up more than enough gems.
KURT BAKER COMBO – Let’s Go Wild!
Kurt Baker is a very prolific musician and songwriter. In the six year stretch between 2012 and Easter 2018, whether solo or part of a band, he’s released the equivalent of at least two albums per year. Against the odds, most of the material has been great.
Relocating from the US to Spain in 2013, Kurt formed the Kurt Baker Combo, a band who would ultimately inject a little more of a garage rock ethic into his gift for a power pop hook. Their first record, 2016’s ‘In Orbit’, was a little fuzzier than expected and took a bit more getting into than any of Baker’s earlier works, but still carried great choruses and a fiery energy throughout. Working to a similar formula, the Combo’s 2018 record ‘Let’s Go Wild!’, if anything, is even fuzzier. Given the rate Baker has released records, it was only a matter of time before one of his albums showed a couple of flaws. This is that record. In terms of production, some of the shinier power pop elements are absorbed by dense guitars and a world of vocal filters that sometimes make the material a little more difficult to process.
KURT BAKER – The Lost Weekend EP
Whether solo, playing as a member of the Kurt Baker Combo or a key member of Spanish pop-punkers Bullet Proof Lovers, something that comes across on pretty much any Kurt Baker recording is how much joy he gets just from playing music for the love of it. He’s also frighteningly prolific. If he’s not sweating it out at live shows, he’s in the studio. If he’s not in the studio, he’s writing. Obviously, with such a frantic recording artist, not everything makes the final cut of an album, but Baker is never content with leaving things on the shelf.