Over the past nine months, armed with an understated, three-track demo called “Demogogue” and a string of live appearances, Hartford’s Orders has found a place in Connecticut’s indie folk scene.
“We’ve been playing out a lot and gaining name recognition,” guitarist/singer Jared Blumer, 26, said, “and it’s interesting because we’ve been getting a lot of support from people.”
Orders was a trio — Blumer, bassist Andy Tucker, who also sings and writes, and violin player Robyn Buttrey — when “Demogogue” was recorded. Drummer Dan Deutsch joined a few months later. On Thursday, Orders will celebrate the release of “Works & Days,” a new EP featuring the full band, with a show at Hartford’s Arch Street Tavern. (Folk musician Jacket Thor and Dr. Martino, a garage-rock outfit from Willimantic, open.)
Blumer, a Philadelphia native, performed mostly solo acoustic shows before forming Orders. “Some of these songs are ones I’ve been playing for a long time,” he said. “This band has been a real catalyst for getting them to go where they needed to go.” Tucker arrived from Cleveland to go to graduate school at UConn; he met Blumer through Blumer’s girlfriend, who also studies at UConn. Buttrey and Deutsch are Connecticut natives.
“Works & Days” was produced and mixed by Andrew Oedel (Hanging Hills, Straight to VHS) at Rotary Records in West Springfield, Mass. “It’s this really incredible studio,” Blumer said. “We got to see each other play, because you can set it up in such a way that the booths can all look and see each other with the sound bleeding.”
Orders sounds like it’s been playing together for a lot longer than nine months. Blumer and Tucker sing in unison on the title track (written by Tucker), over terrific ensemble playing and pitch-perfect solos from Buttrey. (Their voices — raspy, mid-range and conversational, and unsweetened by reverb or studio gimmickry — are eerily similar.) Tucker plays fuzz bass (the signal is sent through an overdrive or distortion pedal), removing some of the low end while creating a sort of buzz-saw counterpoint to Buttrey’s violin.
Tucker’s “St. Rita,” is a folksy love song with “well all right” intoned at the end of each verse and a whistling refrain. Blumer’s songs are darker: “Kites fly toward the tides,” he sings on the first verse of the somber “Strings At Her End,” over just his guitar and Buttrey’s violin, “Will I ever be at home with her on the ground? / Synthetic winds are rocking and all the world is crashing down.” “Walking With Me” (also Blumer’s) masks the singer’s dour worldview (“You’re walking with me / We’ll be dead soon you see”) with an upbeat groove and a wordless, sing-song refrain (“Oh, wa-a-oh-o-oh”).
Since August, Orders has performed all over New England and plans to stretch out into New York in the near future. Next month, they’ll appear at the first-ever Connecticut Farm & Folk Festival in Glastonbury.
“We’re all pretty tied to Connecticut for the time being, but we’ve been planning some short weekend tours and ways we can make it work with our jobs,” Blumer said, “maybe taking a week off at some point for a longer tour.”
ORDERS plays at Arch Street Tavern in Hartford on Thursday, May 14, with Dr. Martino and Jacket Thor opening. Showtime is 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $7-$10. Information: archstreettavern.com.
