Bent Shapes has strong connections to the band’s hometown of Boston and the music community there. Listening to the record almost drops you right into the streets, brick buildings everywhere and rats scurrying around corners. They’re the kids that worked behind the counter of the local thrift store, hocking treasures and oddities from lost decades. Or the kids in the coffee shop that you recognize from the basement show the night before and that you have a supremely awkward conversation with, almost as if “Fight Club” rules applied. However, they’re just the same type of socially clumsy dudes that embody the title of their debut LP, Feels Weird.
The project began with guitarist Ben Potrykus writing songs under the name of Girlfriends. The trio, including Supriya Gunda on bass and Andy Sadoway on drums, teamed up (oddly enough) through musical basements and working at thrift stores. On Feels Weird, they all share the microphone with each member singing at least one song. For a few years now, the group has been consistently releasing solid EPs and singles on cassettes and vinyl. Their debut Girlfriends cassette was a group of songs that complemented each other well, recorded in a more lo-fi style that really lent itself to the content of those particular songs. A few of their singles were released as flexible vinyl 7″ discs–translucent squares that appear as if the manufacturer forgot to pop the record out that can be flexed in half (or maybe it’s better to say it could be bent in a plethora of shapes).
