MP3: A Treachery of Sound – “Turn the Other Cheek”

When it comes to its music scene, San Diego is a city of multitaskers. Musicians like Andrew Armerding and Greg Theilmann fill seemingly every waking hour working in groups like River City and Diatribes, respectively. Now it looks like Armerding and Theilmann’s knack for overachievement has rubbed off on their shared bandmate, Chad Pittman.

You’d think that already playing in River City, Diatribes, and Crooked would keep Pittman spread pretty thin, but he’s about to unveil a whole new endeavor, called A Treachery of Sound. Recorded by Pittman and Theilmann at the latter’s Bed No Breakfast Studios, the upcoming A Treachery of Sound album reads like a who’s-who of San Diego’s top musicians.

Take the slow-burning first single, “Turn the Other Cheek,” for example. The track features Pittman on acoustic guitar, Dustin Lothspeich (Old Tiger, Boy King, Chess Wars, Diamond Lakes) on electric guitar, Drew Douglas (Grandpaw Drew, The Flim Flam Review) on backup vocals, Patrick Conway (The Western Set) on snare, Armerding on bass and harmonies, and Theilmann on synth.

And that’s just this song — Pittman worked with a revolving cast of over 20 of his closest musical friends for the project. The tracks began as stripped-down folk songs which Pittman would Dropbox to each of his collaborators for their contributions. The whole process took a year, but the finished A Treachery of Sound album is finally set to drop in the next month or so.

Though Pittman is the only constant member of the project, he is considering putting together a live band for the album’s release. In the meantime, you can see him in all three of his other bands this weekend: River City play Seven Grand on Thursday, Crooked play the San Diego Contra Dance at Trinity United Methodist Church on Friday, and Diatribes play the North Park Festival of Arts on Saturday. See, we told you the guy was busy.