Patience pays off: Youngsville to release 'Hometown Relics' nearly eight years after recording

Carlos J.R. Garcia learned a lesson in patience.

As the leader of Youngsville, Garcia and the band created a body of work almost eight years ago.

The moment to release it never felt right.

“It’s easily the longest gestating project,” Garcia says. “It needed to come out this year versus eight years ago. We needed it to evolve into what it is today.”

Youngsville is having a vinyl release for “Hometown Relics” on Friday, Feb. 16, at Launchpad. The concert will also feature Red Light Cameras, Dusty Rug and Dymer.

Patience pays off: Youngsville to release 'Hometown Relics' nearly eight years after recording

Almost eight years ago, the band rented a casita and set up a makeshift studio to write and record for a month.

Ironically, the intention was to complete an album or EP quickly, since the band knew that this could be the last time they were all in the same place making music – and it would be for quite a while.

In March 2016, all the band members were going through huge transformations.

Garcia and Cody Wilmon were moving the band to Austin, Texas. Meanwhile, Ryan Sciarrotta was moving to Boise, Idaho, and Miguel Sanchez was starting a new family in Albuquerque.

Garcia says the month-long session went well, with over a dozen songs recorded.

However, final production was delayed due to illness and the chaos of moving away from Albuquerque.

Still, Garcia felt that he could finish the production once he was settled in Austin.

However, once in Texas, Youngsville was booking as many shows as possible; playing cover gigs and doing their best to survive the musical landscape of the Lone Star State.

The recordings from Albuquerque were mostly abandoned, only occasionally resurfacing to be tweaked, but never manifesting into any sort of completion.

In December 2019, Youngsville went on a hiatus. Then, the pandemic happened and Garcia moved back to Albuquerque in December 2020 with the realization that family and community are more important than whatever prospects would come from living in a bigger city.

Garcia approached the original members of the band, all now back in the Duke City, to see if there was interest in revisiting Youngsville.

“Luckily, everyone was on board with a fresh motivation to focus on original songs and performances where music is the focus,” Garcia says. “This led back to that neglected album. The many tweaks through the years had left the songs from that session in a completely different format, sound, style and even genre.”

Garcia says he went back to the original takes and the band began to reevaluate their lives from that time.

With a uniform vision in place, production was completed on the album. The band recruited the mixing talents of Matt Tobias at Empty House Studios to give it a sonic sheen, with mastering done by Doug Van Sloun at Focus Mastering.

Garcia says there are 10 tracks that were whittled down from 18.

“This album is as New Mexican, specifically Albuquerque, as it can get,” Garcia says. “I wanted to experience it through that lens. We were getting to the root of what I was feeling and I wanted it to be authentically about this area.”