Corvair

Portland, Oregon
Corvair is a Portland-based “super duo” comprised of Brian Naubert (Ruston Mire, Tube Top, Pop Sickle, The Service Providers) and Heather Larimer (Eux Autres).
Combined, Brian and Heather have created or performed on more than twenty albums. But this album marks the first time they join forces on a musical project. Although the band started in 2019, their eponymous debut album was largely created during the COVID pandemic shut-down of Spring 2020. “Recording and writing new music without the benefit of testing ideas in front of a live audience was strange,” says Brian. “But ultimately, it gave us the freedom to really play with ideas and explore things we hadn’t ever tried before.”
The record and band have been described by KEXP as “a promising set of hook-filled indie-pop”, and by Analogue as “the ideal pop/rock convergence.” American Songwriter described the sound as,"dynamic and bombastic, but with infectious, subtle melodies,” and NPR has twice included recent singles in their New Music Friday Spotify playlists. Threading together 70’s pop, 80’s synth rock and 90’s indie rock, influences from The Carpenters to ELO, Cheap Trick to Arcade Fire, Corvair somehow sounds both satisfyingly familiar and bracingly new.
This power pop duo attributes their sudden explosion of great songwriting to the fact they have been longtime friends watching each other’s musical trajectories for years, but only recently decided to collaborate in music. “I first met Brian in the 90’s at the NXNW festival when he was in a much-hyped Peter Buck-produced band called Tube Top,” says Heather. Brian adds, “We hit it off instantly but we danced around the relationship idea for many years. Right after we got married in 2017, I did a 30-day songwriting challenge where I wrote several songs a day, and once I started workshopping the songs with Heather, we realized we were amazing collaborators with a great record on our hands.”
Their debut album is full of anthemic, richly-harmonied songs that narrate the uncertainty and raw emotion of high-stakes love. Brian explains, “These are definitely the most exposed and truthful lyrics we have ever written. And musically, we just went for it. We didn’t try to talk ourselves out of weird moves, like laying some Mamas and Papas-style harmonies next to a Cars-esque keyboard solo or aggressive guitar work.” Heather adds, “We are so happy that the record has had such an excellent response, that our particular cocktail of feelings and sounds is connecting with people.”
While the band prepares to assemble a live unit for post-COVID life, they will be releasing more online content in the coming months and recording a second album in mid summer 2021.
Corvair was released worldwide on February 19, 2021 courtesy of wiaiwya Records (UK) and Paper Walls Records (US) and includes work with drummer Eric Eagle (Jesse Sykes, Wayne Horvitz) and Engineer Martin Feveyear (Brandi Carlile, Mark Lanegan, Mudhoney), who also mixed the record.