Neutral Milk Hotel Members Play on Denver Band's Lost Album

Supergroups tend to flaunt their collective pedigrees. Not so with PW3. Since its formation in 1995, the Denver-based outfit has plied its moody take on instrumental jazz-meets-post-rock — think Tortoise scoring French New Wave films — while drifting under the radar until going on hiatus in 2022. However, PW3's members have served in the lauded local outfits Warlock Pinchers, the Apples in Stereo and Dressy Bessy, not to mention having played on the albums of Neutral Milk Hotel, one of the most beloved indie-rock bands ever.

PW3 may have a trombonist, but it doesn't toot its own horn.

"It would have felt really mercenary to us if we'd said, 'PW3 features members of Neutral Milk Hotel and Warlock Pinchers,'" says Brian Murphy, one of the group's guitarists, who was an early member of the Pinchers as a teen in the late ’80s.

"In retrospect, yeah, maybe we should have," he adds. "But whatever."

PW3 is so unassuming that its new release, Live on KGNU 1-11-05 (or 06), came from a radio session that the members forgot even existed. Captured in KGNU's Boulder studio in either 2005 or 2006 — PW3 can't remember which year it was, and Murphy says the members were "too busy to spend the time trying to figure it out" — the band's copy of the recording languished in a pile of loose CDs at the apartment of second guitarist Eric Allen. After he stumbled across it earlier this year, he and his bandmates realized something special had slipped through the cracks.

Across the album's five tracks, Murphy and Allen (of the Apples in Stereo) trade hypnotic motifs with vibraphonist Craig Gilbert (of Dressy Bessy). Meanwhile, drummer Merisa Bissinger, bassist Dane Terry and trombonist Rick Benjamin-Tebelau — all of whom played on Neutral Milk Hotel's legendary studio recordings, produced at Denver's defunct Pet Sounds Recording Studio in the ’90s — guide the songs with improvisational grace.

Although it never cashed in on its overlap with so many cult-favorite bands, PW3 has always valued more organic connections. When the band had a monthly residency at Denver's late, great City Spirit Cafe in the ’90s, Murphy remembers, "there was always some random person who would come up to us and say, "I've never heard anything like that before. That's fucking great.'"

After pausing, he adds with a laugh, "Usually it was the bartender, though."

In classic PW3 fashion, the members don't have any immediate plans to promote their new release live, though they all still reside in Colorado. "We were pretty broken by the pandemic, like a lot of bands were," Murphy says. "We haven't gotten together in about two years. But maybe something will come out of this."

If and when PW3 reunites, music fans might follow the band's example and rediscover a gem.

Live on KGNU 1-11-05 (or 06) is only available on Bandcamp.