Now You Know

Three years ago, the Williamsburg-based band Savoir Adore released a conceptual EP, The Adventures of Mr. Pumpernickel and the Girl with Animals in Her Throat. The result of a self-imposed musical challenge between friends Deidre Muro and Paul Hammer, it sounded vaguely like french pop songs made with incredibly lo-fi recording and every instrument but the kitchen sink. It was weird, but it was catchy, and the next year when the band released its first full-length album, In the Wooded Forrest, featuring a more polished version of equally catchy songs, the band garnered widespread attention in earnest, from music blogs and Brooklyn concert-goers alike.

Now, after playing the same material for two years, the band is recording, holed up in Hammer’s father’s studio in upstate New York, in the thick of writing and recording a second full-length album. The songs are getting even more poppy and clean, kind of like if Stereo Total went through the pop polish ringer, but still feature a range of instruments and soulful element them make them unique. Savoir Adore is also, for the first time, recording songs with a full band (drummer Tim McCoy and bassist Gary Atturio round out the group), instead recording after recording that Muro and Hammer layered on top of each other. So far the group has released two songs: “Loveliest Creature,” which features Muro’s sultry voice over insistent guitar and piano notes with a poppy undercurrent; and “Sparrow,” a rock song so laid back and harmonious that it could almost be by the Beach Boys, except for a slight hint of danger carried by Muro and Hammer’s vocal tracks.

“A lot has changed on the technical side, just in terms of experience and learning through doing that,” Hammer tells me over coffee at Williamsburg’s Modca. “We’re able to express ourselves in more specific ways. If there’s some sort of specific sound we want to go for, we’re able to do it a little bit better.”

Muro and Hammer first met in a songwriting group at NYU. Though they each had always been passionate about music—both come from musical families, with Hammer’s father is as a TV and film composer, and Muro’s father teaches electronic music while her mother is a choir director; both grew up playing and singing music (Muro loved musicals as a child) and played in bands in high school—the two were feeling stuck in their creative process.

“I just had hit a point where I wanted to try something else really different than literally writing about my own feelings,” Muro says.

In came that fateful weekend when the two wrote their first album. Challenging themselves to write songs through the eyes of fictional characters, they created on the train ride up to Hammer’s childhood home.

“Now that’s all I do,” Muro says. “I take inspiration from experiences that I have, but in every project I have been a part of since [that weekend], I’ve put myself somewhere else. And it’s amazing, I think I make better things when I do that.”

These days the two are so comfortable with each other that together they don’t speak in complete sentences—“No!” Hammer interjects at one point when Muro is talking about going stir crazy in the studio. “I thought you were going to,” he cuts off. “I would never,” she reassures him. “That’s too embarrassing.”—and teasing each other with bad puns—“Growing up we had the Long Island Sound,” Muro quips. “And that’s what they called me, you know? The Long Island Sound,” before devolving into giggles. These are two people who clearly love working together, even if their end product isn’t more complicated than enjoyable conversation.

Though both have been balancing the fine line between making art and making a living for the past few years, the balance is slowly starting to tip in favor of making music all the time. But when it comes to making their own music, the two are uncompromising. I ask them who they admire the most musically and each picks someone known for sticking to their guns: Muro goes with Brian Wilson and Jack White; Hammer picks his father.

“There are always going to be external compromises pressuring you to do things you don’t want to do,” says Hammer. “It’s hard to fight them and say it’s OK that this song is five minutes long, it’s how it came out. My dad always did what made him happy. It’s been hard for him sometimes because of that, professionally, in terms of reaching a wider audience, but it doesn’t matter. Because he’s totally happy and fulfilled in what he does.”

The two had sworn to give up playing shows while they write their new album, but that didn’t last long: on June 21 the band will be playing at the Metropolitan Pavilion for City Harvest’s Summer in the City event, and on June 26 it’ll be performing at the intimate In Vino Winebar for the Vivo en Vino music series.

“My parents kind of in a way would always encourage me to explore other things in a way in case it didn’t work out as a career option,” Hammer says. “But what happens is, especially if it’s what you love, and if you put yourself in an environment where it’s encouraged like New York, making music just sort becomes unavoidable.”

>Savior Adore, June 26, In Vino Wine Bar, 215 E. 4th St. (betw. Aves. A & B), 212-539-1011; 8, $25.