[Cover photo credit to Eva Blue]

You Know The Reason is the new sophomore album by Fuzz Collective, available now via Color Red. The band recorded the twelve-song set in a day and a half at 2200 Studios in Sausalito with guitarist and producer Eddie Roberts, founder of the long-running Soul-Jazz group The New Mastersounds.

They tracked in Studio B at 2200 Studios, formerly The Record Plant, where Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone, and the Grateful Dead recorded during the studio’s heyday.

Fuzz Collective features guitarist and vocalist Jeff Yasuda, bassist and vocalist Ethan Beard, harmonica player and vocalist Pete Chung, drummer and vocalist Tim Fisher, and keyboardist and vocalist Jason Tavano.

Fuzz Collective formed in the early 2000s, simply as Fuzz and some members have known each other since the 1990s. All five members actually hold leadership roles across tech and finance and they make time for music.

Yasuda explains:

The band isn’t something that brought us together. t grew out of already knowing and trusting each other. There’s less posturing. Less urgency to prove anything.

Roberts focused on full performances for their recording sessions and pushed the band toward simplicity. Drummer Tim Fisher set up inside the studio’s circular “drumbrella” mic rig, and the band ran the instrumentals start to finish, without stitched rhythm sections or comped takes.

Their latest single and video, “I Can Tell”, opens the album and features a “mod-era keyboard figure from Jason Tavano — reminiscent of The Who.” The lyrics handle “a dawning realization — suspicion giving way to clarity.”