Band of the Week: Ferocious Bubbles

Hometown: Birmingham, AL
Fun Fact: When not writing or recording Ferocious Bubbles music, each of the prolific band’s members are involved with at least one other musical project.
Why They’re Worth Watching: This sonically adventurous Birmingham quintet is quickly expanding its orbit outside the Southeast.
For Fans Of: Dumptruck, The Wrens, Low

If it’s true that, as Elvis Costello once famously opined, writing about music is like dancing about architecture, then one might imagine the Ferocious Bubbles’ latest album, Save Yourself and Run Away, as the soundtrack for the modern dance equivalent of Waiting For Godot. Listen close and you’ll hear the nervous shuffle that comes before making a move towards the unknown - ecstasy, fear, calm, darkness and acceptance. But despite the rush of “Airport,” “Skywaves,” or the soaring title track, the protagonists of Save Yourself and Run Away are on the verge of movement but seemingly never make the leap. Still, at each song’s essence is a vital buoyancy that, despite singer-songwriter Pete Szelenbaum’s tendency to stay grounded, pulls everything skyward. There are no fixed points – even when things seem irrevocably stuck.

Ferocious Bubbles began with Szelenbaum’s head full of songs and a four-track recorder. Although he had been writing songs for some time, it wasn’t until 2002 that a revolving cast of friends and admirers lent their talents to fleshing them out live and in the studio. The result was an EP of which the eponymous title said it all: the Ferocious Bubbles were aggressively sublime.

The feeling that Ferocious Bubbles were something of a community affair was furthered with Absence is a Strange Something. It was during this time that a Ferocious Bubbles show might feature more than half a dozen musicians, including a miniature string section. As luck would have it, that revolving door policy eventually led to the current line up of Szelenbaum, guitarist Nick Punch, bassist Vic Donati, drummer Randall Shurbet and multi-instrumentalist Ken Moore.

This current line-up recorded Save Yourself and Run Away and, perhaps not so surprisingly, represents the group’s most powerful amalgam to date. “I’ve learned to embrace what they’re doing," Szelenbaum says. "It’s nice to hear someone put something on top of your stuff that you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. To embrace it is, you know…liberating.”