B-Side Guys

From the attic of a 1910 Sherman Heights home, where wine flows and family-style meals precede every rehearsal, The Color Forty Nine has crafted something that defies their San Diego address—a song that floats somewhere between border town dust and orbital space.

“We Send Satellites” draws on the collective muscle memory of musicians who’ve cut their teeth with Pinback, The Black Heart Procession, and Album Leaf, but it’s the unexpected instrumental choices that give the track its distinctive pulse. Beaumont’s baritone ukulele—a travel convenience turned sonic signature—provides an earthy anchor for Matt Resovich’s home-built effects-laden violin, which traces constellations through the mix.

The production creates a careful dance between intimacy and expanse, mirroring the song’s central struggle with perspective. “There are so many places/So many faces to see/So why am I always/Turning the lens upon me?” comes the confession, floating over Jason Hooper’s bass work (a role reversal for the veteran drummer) and Scott Mercado’s rhythmic foundation. The arrangement breathes like the Mojave at dusk, with synthesizers painting purple shadows across the soundscape.

What’s remarkable is how the track transforms its observational anxiety into celebration. As the lyrics pivot to witness “a mother’s pride in her boy/As a dancer tries to hit his mark/As a baby learns her first word,” the music opens up like a time-lapse of desert flowers blooming. These moments of pure attention to others become their own kind of orbit, each verse another satellite beaming back images of life unfolding below.

For a band that earned San Diego Music Award nominations with their first release, “We Send Satellites” suggests they’re still more interested in watching than being watched. It’s the sound of seasoned musicians finding fresh vantage points, trading spotlight for starlight.