Veteran musician Daniel Stampfel has been playing in bands on NYC circuit for quite a number of years but has finally released his first solo disc. Stampfel previously fronted The Inevitable Breakups, a power-pop quartet, whose debut album, No Wonder You’re So Beautiful, was produced by Richard Lloyd. One reviewer called Stampfel the “the reincarnation of Buddy Holly” and New York Press described the band as follows: “With a sound and infectious vocal harmonies reminiscent of The Raspberries, Weezer, The Cars, and Cheap Trick, they manage to combine those artists’ musical qualities to full effect with some kick-ass results.”



With the (inevitable) breakup of The Inevitable Breakups in 2007, Stampfel kept a low profile for the next few years. “I stopped playing for about three years. I got wrapped up in relationships and real life,” says Stampfel. “I would write here and there, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do; what style, what ideas. But I knew I wanted to do something different.” Without a band for the first time in years, Stampfel didn’t have a set group to give him the yay or nay on his songs — and he didn’t have a set idea of how those songs needed to sound. The time was right for the songwriter to break out; to truly explore what he could do.



The three tracks on At the Moment’s debut EP show Stampfel moving in a direction similar to Matthew Sweet – 60’s/Byrdsian-inspired jangle pop. This is the sort of music that would have come out of Mitch Easter’s studios twenty years ago but, fast-forwarding to the present, Stampfel worked on his new disc with Longwave/Hurricane Bells mainman Steve Schiltz. Armed with a handful of songs he’d demoed at home, Stampfel hit the studio, “not knowing what to expect,” he remembers. Stampfel remembers "Steve suggested we record the songs live to capture the feeling of the original demos. We recruited Benjamin Cartel (Kaiser Cartel, The Benjamin Cartel) to play drums, Steve played bass and I played acoustic guitar. Steve and I shared overdub duties to complete the recording."

The end result was a trio of winsome songs, each with perfectly crafted hooks and ringing guitars.



Links:
At The Moment