Premiere: 90 Minute Cassette’s ‘Hold Back the Water’ is a perfect synth-pop jam

Kansas City, MO USA – May 20, 2024: 90 MINUTE CASSETTE at 7th Street and Wyandotte

90 Minute Cassette. // photo by Todd Zimmer

Brand new Kansas City band 90 Minute Cassette is a duo comprised of Chuck Whittington (namelessnumberheadman, Summer Breeze) on guitar/vocals and Hillary Watts (The Hillary Watts Riot) on synths/vocals whose “musical creations fuse analog sunsets and digital sunrises.”

The TL;DR on the band is that they draw from influences like Tears for Fears, INXS, and Duran Duran to make mixtape-ready, synth-laden, melodically rich music that could fit seamlessly between Splitz Enz’s “I Got You” and New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle.”

On the heels of the May release of their first single, “It’s Something Else,” comes “Hold Back the Water,” full of deadpan, Human League vocals and harmonies and a richly rhythmic pulse.

We’re excited to debut it below, as well as speaking with 90 Minute Cassette’s Chuck Whittington about how this all came together.

The Pitch: How did the two of you come to make music together outside your usual gigs?

Chuck Whittington: I’m in Summer Breeze (yacht rock tribute), namelessnumberheadman (experimental electro/rock/folk) and I play with Madisen Ward (folk songwriter phenom), too. I absolutely love playing in all of these, and so grateful to be a part of them. But I was also finding that I really missed writing and playing my own music out live. Hillary and I had been dating for a few months and having both played music for many years (she’s in Love Snack, a B-52s tribute and obviously, The Hillary Watts Riot), we couldnt help talking about making a band together.

What made you want to lean into this style of music?

With nnhm we’ve always had synths as a central part of the sound. I was an ’80s kid, and I always listened to the radio and taped off the songs that I liked. Around the same time that we were dreaming about what kind of band we might have, I heard a couple of those 80s synth pop songs with the huge hooks: “Something About You” by Level 42, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears, “Need You Tonight” by INXS. And it hit me … that’s exactly the band we ought to do.

Where’d these songs come from?

Sometimes I’ll start with a specific song from the ’80s, and I’ll study it to figure out what it is I love about it, what ingredients are a part of casting its spell. And then I try put those pieces together my own way to recast that spell. Maybe I start by recreating the beat, maybe I try to create a synth part or guitar part that feels close to the original.

Of course, it’s impossible to recreate it perfectly so I let it lead wherever it does, and it becomes its own thing. Like for the first single, “It’s Something Else,” I was trying to make my own version of “More Than This” by Roxy Music. It’s obviously not that song, but some of the elements are still in it.

How have they changed in a live setting?

I started the demos thinking they would only be blueprints for playing live. I expected to play them out and let them grow and then record them. But they had been so fun to record that I picked these two to finish and release. So, the live versions of these two songs (so far at least) have stayed pretty true to the recordings. But with other songs I’m finding that the arrangement changes some when I see how the audience responds, or what the song feels like to play. But I’m always thinking about how these are going to feel live and building them that way.

This is the second of two singles. Are there plans for more, or even an album?

One of our dreams is to make an actual 90 Minute Cassette, even if that’s a 45 min album on both sides. We have three more songs that we’re actively recording now. We intend to release those as singles too. That’s working for us now, but someday we’ll get that 90 Minute Cassette filled up.

90 Minute Cassette plays at minBar on Friday, September 6, with Palm Ghosts and House of Transgressor.