Recovery Council Music

With a head of steam rolling off her new album "Gentle Stories", Rebeca Qualls' musical entity known as Recovery Council brings a much heavier, bolder, and confident edge to the easy, breezy space rock of her past, taking a unique shape that might be best described as "yacht-core". The New Jersey-based vocalist and musician released “Gentle Stories” on March 1, 2011, taking over 100 college and web radio stations across the US and Canada along on the cruise.

Her first album “Advent 619”, leaned mostly toward ethereal, lo-fi dream pop wrapped in beeps, blips, and, as former Grandaddy frontman Jason Lytle once said of the album, "nerdy twiddlings". This time around, Qualls keeps consistent with her penchant for syrupy easy listening and jazz, but melds in elements of opposing genres including post-punk, college rock, industrial, and new wave. The greatest irony in “Gentle Stories”, however, is the unearthing of Qualls’ metal roots, some of which peek out through her bass playing - she cites Steve Harris of Iron Maiden as her first “bass god”. But her musical roots also take another detour with her guitar playing, combining a My Bloody Valentine-esque drone of fuzzy chords with the disciplined precision of Helmet. (Perhaps not surprisingly, she counts the likes of Page Hamilton and Wes Montgomery among her most influential guitar heroes.) Add some haunting piano and keyboard soundscapes, punctuate it with driving, deliberate percussion and the hodgepodge of musical styles fully unfolds, assembling Rebeca's craft from a broad spectrum of listening interests.

In October 2010, Recovery Council released a cover of veteran post-punk outfit My Dad is Dead’s “A Million Questions”. A self-produced video of the song was featured at celebrations for MDID founder Mark Edwards' birthday and the band’s 25th year anniversary in both Chapel Hill, NC and Cleveland, OH. The song is now available on iTunes and is included on “Gentle Stories”.

With the exception of the composition of "A Million Questions", Rebeca wrote, arranged, recorded, engineered, mixed and edited all the songs on "Gentle Stories". She plays all guitars, bass, electronic percussion, and keyboards, tying it all together with darkly disruptive yet seductive vocals. In her quest for a more organic sound, she enlisted drummer Jeff Trenholm, who played/recorded/engineered all acoustic drums on the album. Interestingly, the two collaborated on the construction of "Gentle Stories" without ever playing in the same room together - it was done entirely online.

To support the release of "Gentle Stories" Recovery Council is performing and booking regional dates throughout 2011, embarking on their live journey as a dynamic duo with Rebeca (guitar/pedals/keys/vocals) and Jeff (drums) taking the stage together as a two-piece. This may beg the question, how do two people make a live performance sound as big as a full band? “I’m playing guitar, but using an octave pedal to add additional low end to the mix,” explained Qualls, “with separate outputs going to guitar and bass amps.” At that time "Mr.Opie" (the octave pedal as she once nicknamed it) served as an inanimate band member.

Mr. Opie has since been replaced by bassist Isidro "Sid" Santos, who takes the dynamic of Recovery Council's live sound to a new level. Between the fluidity of Santos' bass, the precision of Trenholm's drums, and the raucous yet calm dichotomy of Qualls' guitar, keyboards, and vocals, the result yields a formidable power trio born of true musical chemistry - and the embodiment of yacht-core at its finest!