A Cappella Club, Take it SLO, Releases New EP

Nick Reeves was a freshman when he walked through the Cal Poly Club Showcase during Week of Welcome (WOW).

He walked past rows and rows of booths representing different on-campus clubs and organizations — academic clubs, sports teams, fraternities and sororities — looking for a community that he could call his own.

Then, Reeves spotted a club that would impact his college experience in ways he never expected.

Surprising even himself, he decided to audition for Take It SLO, one of Cal Poly’s two on-campus a capella groups — and Reeves, now an industrial engineering senior, has been singing with the group ever since.

“I didn’t even really know or like a capella when I first saw them,” Reeves said. “I (auditioned) by chance and just happened to stumble upon my favorite people that I’ve met at Cal Poly.”

Take It SLO released an EP on Nov. 17, titled “Retrospect,” which is now available for streaming on Spotify and Apple Music. It was the a capella group’s first recorded release since their 2019 single “Just Got Paid.” They began working on “Retrospect” in 2019 as well, but halted production due to COVID. 

 

 

“Retrospect” showcases four arrangements and features voices of current Take It SLO members and recent graduates.

“It’s really interesting to see the intergenerational aspect that this EP has, and it brings even more sentimentality to it,” Reeves said.

Take It SLO recorded and produced the EP entirely by themselves, according to Reeves.

“The process of making the EP was really mostly DIY, which was really, really fun,” he said.

Take It SLO recorded the EP in member Ben Slope’s bedroom closet. Slope set up a recording microphone in the center of the closet, then draped blankets around its perimeter as makeshift sound treatment.

The group recorded songs each week. Members would come to Slope’s house in four groups — sopranos, altos, tenors and basses — and record their parts individually. Slope then layered the individual vocal parts, and mixed and mastered the songs.

Slope, who graduated from Cal Poly in 2022 with a business administration degree, said his favorite songs on the EP are those that feature generations of Take It SLO voices.

“The really cool part about (the EP) is some of the recordings that we took in early 2020 are people that now have been out of college for two years,” Slope said. “(Some of the songs) really feel like a Take It SLO legacy.”

The title of the EP also represents both the hard work of current Take It SLO members and those who have graduated, according to Slope.

“We sat down trying to decide on a name that felt resonant to us and we landed on ‘Retrospect,’” he said. “This project feels like it’s been a long time coming… To us, the word ‘Retrospect’ really felt like we were looking back on the past few years as a group (and) how things have changed so much.”

“Retrospect” primarily features pop songs, but throughout the years, Take It SLO has performed songs ranging from older classics to modern indie music.

Take It SLO Vice President and graphic communications sophomore Rilley Yuen said she is most excited for listeners to hear Take It SLO’s rendition of Vulfpeck’s “Back Pocket,” an arrangement that Reeves wrote during his freshman year.

“We sing (‘Back Pocket’) a lot throughout the year, and it’s become one of our staples,” Yuen said. “It sounds so cool and it’s super complex and awesome to hear.”

Other songs on the EP include covers of Bruno Mars’s “Smokin Out the Window,” Dua Lipa’s “Physical” and Harry Styles’s “Lights Up.”

Most of the songs that Take It SLO performs are arranged by members of the group — Yuen recently wrote an arrangement for Harry Styles’s “Music for a Sushi Restaurant,” which Take It SLO performed at their annual Winter Concert on Dec. 3.

Arrangements can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months to write and rehearse, and all Take It SLO members are welcome to write their own arrangements — song selection is a group effort, Yuen said.

All members are also welcome to audition for solos. Auditions happen during Take It SLO rehearsals, which are held twice per week in a classroom on-campus. Any member who wants to audition for the solo performs a verse and a chorus. The auditioners then leave the room so the rest of the group can deliberate and choose a soloist and an alternate.

“As an auditioner, it’s a little scary, but it’s a little less scary when you realize you’re just singing in front of your friends in a classroom,” Yuen said.

The process of recording the EP was more nerve wracking for Yuen than auditioning for a solo, she said.

Yuen said she had never sung into a recording microphone before. While recording, the backing track played in Yuen’s ears, but any other Take It SLO members in the room could only hear Yuen’s vocals.

Recording “Retrospect” was a “pretty vulnerable setting, but everyone there was really supportive,” Yuen said.

Take It SLO President and theatre arts senior Liza Holmes said Take It SLO “has created a family at its core.”

The club is close-knit, according to Holmes. 

“We have so many inside jokes… and we (come up with) dances for some of the songs and we do them during rehearsal,” she said. “It’s just all very fun.”

 

 

Rehearsals are two hours long on Wednesdays, and three hours long on Sundays. The meetings typically begin with announcements about club events, then vocal warm-ups. The club then moves on to practicing their setlists for any upcoming performances.

One rehearsal technique that the club utilizes is called Quartet, in which four Take It SLO members — one from each vocal group — stands at the front of the room and sings one of the songs from their setlist.

“It’s kind of a test of our memory,” Holmes said.

The club’s hard work at rehearsals culminates at their annual concerts. Take It SLO generally performs two on-campus concerts throughout the academic year.

Video by Alyson Smith 

“It’s such an exciting experience to be working on something for ten weeks straight, and then to perform in front of loved ones and friends,” Holmes said. 

While the live performances are fun, member Nick Reeves said “the people” are what really makes Take It SLO memorable.

“My favorite part about being in Take It SLO is just being able to sing with my best friends,” he said. “I wish it (could last) forever.”

Featured image courtesy of Reilly Yuen.