By Zach Collier
Ambient sounds. Tape hiss. Clicks and clacks. Rising white noise. Suddenly: present warbly vocals, smash compressed drums, electronic production, and lush harmonies that feel like exploding color. This is “evening body,” the opening track from Bly Wallentine’s new record, oh hey! are you okay???
The album dropped earlier this month ahead of The Toaster Oven’s one year anniversary. A full-service recording studio with a unique and holistic art-first business model, Bly Wallentine co-founded it with frequent collaborator, bandmate, and friend Colin Foy.
“Year 1 at the Toaster Oven has been incredible,” Bly says. “We’ve been surrounded by fun, beautiful, and inspiring music, and we’re deeply grateful to have been invited into so many artists’ creative processes. Watching albums and singles come to life and be embraced by listeners has been a true honor.”
From being a part of Little Moon’s whirlwind NPR experience and everything that’s followed to working on dozens of local releases, The Toaster Oven has been busy this last year. Even with all this success, they’re still future-focused.
“As we move into Year 2, we’re excited to deepen our focus on community-building, play, and experimentation,” Bly explains. “Our intention is to support the growth of every song that calls us, helping it take form while fostering both collective and individual healing. It’s all about fun, creativity, and allowing artists to freely express the energies within them.”
oh hey! are you okay??? makes a great case for why artists should work with The Toaster Oven. From start to finish, this new record demonstrates the best Bly Wallentine has to offer as a musician, as a composer, and as an engineer. It’s easily the best Bly Wallentine record to date. It’s incredible. Bly’s most accessible record, all of their huge-brain, epic, experimental compositional tastes still undergird each track, but it’s Trojan Horsed in an indie package. It’s a little folk, a little electronic, a little rock, a little Bowie, a little orchestra, a little familiar, a little bizarre. It’s all solid.
Even Bly’s penchant for protest art isn’t sacrificed on the altar of accessibility. Quite the opposite: it’s on full display on “the holy veil of objects and the medicine of hate,” where Bly wrestles with the horrors and paradoxes of the Gaza bombings. The song is such that no matter where you fall on the political spectrum, you can’t deny that the track is fantastic.
One of the things that makes the Provo music industry so competitive and vibrant is its studio system. The Toaster Oven is the latest addition to that system, and brings a distinct sound and production process to the mix.
If you’d like to get to know the team at The Toaster Oven, they’re holding their first Birthday Bash tomorrow, September 27, 2024. The event will feature live music from Dosey Don’t, Ryan Moore, Dirk Jeffrey, Anni Pasto, Nate Hardyman, Lindenfield, and Bly Wallentine. It will also feature a vintage popup, food, drinks, a merch table, and more. It runs from 6-11:30 PM. RSVP here.
Make sure to follow The Toaster Oven on Instagram and listen to “evening body” by Bly Wallentine below!