Saddle Up, the out-pop debut of Athens, GA’s Quiet Hooves combines orchestral textures with jazz rock rhythms, ragtime melodies with baroque and psychedelic pop song structures. The result is a Vaudevillian pastiche à la Van Dyke Parks’s Song Cycle.  In a throwback to assembly line record production, singer/songwriter Julian Bozeman handed the tracks over to Javier Morales, who arranged, recorded, produced and engineered each — alone in his bedroom on a Tascam MKII cassette recorder.  Fitting, as the 12 piece live band has recently returned from four nights of support on home recording legend R. Stevie Moore’s first-ever tour. Morales has created a warm and peculiarly familiar feeling for Saddle Up. It’s as if we’ve stumbled upon soundtrack clouds for ten miniature tents at an old time-y circus where Ringmaster Bozeman’s vocals serve as guide through the narratives of each.

The party’s particularly poppin’ in the “My Girl” tent as Yellow Magic Orchestra-style synths and sharply timed drum machines shoot through pocket symphonies of shiny keyboards. Softly commanding, Old South-tinged vocals ramble the shortcomings of an un-won object of his affection in a bouncy, mischievous way, perhaps in coy flirtation. We’ve seen a bearded lady and the rest of the “sideshow freaks” before — but this time, we’re going to hear their stories.

Quiet Hooves, “My Girl”

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Words: Mary Katherine Youngblood

Saddle Up now available in CD and LP formats from the band’s own Party Party Partners. Forthcoming Stallin’ 12″ available March 2012.