Lost in the supermarket? RAYON revitalised following Guadalajara odyssey

NORTH PORTLAND resident Eric Sabatino and his spiky, post-punk collective RAYON summon the fabled spirits of Gang of Four and Cleaners From Venus on latest single, ‘Shopping,’ via Little Cloud Records.

The magnificently unhinged ‘Shopping’ – a light-hearted ode to consumerism and travel – was inspired by near-exhaustion, and a revitalizing trip south of the border.

“This EP almost didn’t happen,” he said. “I nearly walked away from Rayon. The last record wasn’t selling, a lack of decent show offers, festival rejections and a general feeling of burnout was happening. Our second guitarist left, and then our drummer. The addition of guitarist Riley McLaughlin – from Yuvees and Club Deluxe – and Eric Rubalcava [drums] and Derek Longoria-Gomez [percussion/bass] from our ‘band-in-law’ Sun Atoms brought new life and energy to the band.

“We played some of the first enjoyable shows in a few years, and a new energy emerged. We started functioning as a band, we travelled to Mexico and came back to record these songs. And another record is in the works. As for the new video, we got kicked out of two grocery stores making it. The Mexican tienda was cool as hell, they loved it. We shopped and goofed around in stores, drove the old car down to the park under the bridge and had a picnic. Jeff filmed it all on a cute old Super 8 camera.”

Sabatino mixed the album with engineer Larry Crane (The Decemberists, The Go-Betweens, Death Cab for Cutie) at Jackpot! Recording Studio, and Timothy Stellenwek (Yo La Tengo, Grouper, Morphine) at Stereophonic Mastering.

“Doing everything on film and tape is a bit of a safety check-valve, to make sure we make everything like humans with no autotune, copy and paste or AI,” added Sabatino. “I’m becoming an imperfectionist.

“This was the first time we’ve engaged a ‘professional’ to work on our recordings. The education we received was immense, and Larry was kind with his explanations of everything we had previously done ‘wrong’ with our recordings, was willing to work with what we provided and willing to get weird with us.”

Anna Sabatino completes the Rayon lineup.

Connect with Rayon  HERE  and Little Cloud Records  HERE