Walter Salas-Humara, Brett Newski

Singer/songwriter and visual artist Walter Salas-Humara was conceived in Havana, born in New York City, and raised in Southern Florida. His rock band The Silos was voted Best New American Band in the Rolling Stone Critics' Poll of 1987, and according to The New York Times, "His austere style inflects the astringent twang of The Velvet Underground with the drone of R.E.M. and adds countryish echoes that recall Gram Parsons."  

As Rolling Stone contributing editor and long-time fan Anthony DeCurtis states in his liner notes for Curve and Shake release: "That sense of being untethered from certainties, of floating, permeates Curve and Shake. The feeling is gentle, not quite scary, but with an element of unease. Letting go of expectations combines aspects of sadness, freedom and even wonder. How and why did things go so wrong? But if the world is so fluid, perhaps they can go right again. 'Does it have to be so hard?... So many things can go wrong if you try and understand them,' Walter sings in 'Uncomplicated.' The implication is that letting go and giving yourself over to life's inevitable twists and turns, its curves and shakes, rather than trying to control them, is a likelier path to happiness."

While the winter snow buried his hometown of Milwaukee, Brett Newski hibernated to South Africa, touring, couch surfing and writing songs for the Hi-Fi D.I.Y. EP. His car broke down on day one of the tour, food poisoning set in on day five and his train car fell under attack by robbers on a trip from Johannesburg to Durban, inspiring the song No Anchor, a song about diving face-first into the world alone with no safety net.

In preparation for the Hi-Fi D.I.Y. World Tour, Brett returned home to record new material. Fellow Milwaukean and Violent Femmes cofounder, Victor DeLorenzo, produced Hi-Fi D.I.Y. at Howl Street Recordings in Milwaukee. The two geared up for the Hi-Fi sessions by holding coffee drinking contests on Victors front porch, demoing tunes on an old snare drum and ragtime guitar. The five songs are a blend of Newskis anxiety-rich indie rock, along with tongue-in-cheek power acoustic tunes like DIY, about playing the worst show of your life to four people on a shitty Monday night in St. Louis. The final leg of the Hi-Fi D.I.Y. world tour begins in the US on Feb 19th, taking Brett from the Midwest to SXSW and up the east coast.