Category: Singer-Songwriter

TRACK | Casual Technicians – A Lifetime In The Morning

5/5 golden merles

Songwriting triumvirate Nathan Baumgartner, Boone Howard and Tyler Keene have returned with an album (Well Once There Was A King) of playful profundity, earnest strife, and drive-thru funerals. While melodically devoted, it is also again an anomaly among a landscape of folk and rock dominated with fashion, franchise, and anti-poetics.

“It feels too easy to forget/the lie I settle on”

Conceptually the album starts from a bizarre notion of songwriting: what if melody wasn’t a crutch for generalities but instead an enhancement to storytelling populated with keen or amusing observations? A novel conceit among those who generally shovel their shit my way. And, it must be said, a great relief.

“If I only had a mile to go/I’d find a place to lay my head/but I’m traveling on a road that never ends”

Sometimes you must subvert the song to accurately project the world back onto itself. Examples of that sort of happy mangling are many on the album: the muttered uttering of “…to love” in “Power City, USA, Part 2,” the muddied waters at the beginning of “A Road That Never Ends,” prompting and framing its sincerity, and the fractured request of “Please/don’t/worr/y” on “I’ve Lost Control of the Ending.” These are good ideas, well realized within the medium of a song.

The curvature of the carnival mirror realigns the source from out-sized to proper proportion, hymns carefully crafted to contort and bypass inherent biases. Some chances taken for me don’t land as solidly but that is the nature of experimentation, risk and reward. And the rewards greatly outweigh the blunders here. Plus it’s an expansive album; and as a living document, some sections may grow on you as others rot and wither over time.

It’s pay what you will on the bandcamp. Sending also with it Takashi Ito’s “The Moon.”

TRACK | Sam Hirst – Little Thief

5/5 golden merles

Sam Hirst’s single “Little Thief” is gracefully askance lo-fi rock, lyrically inventive in its casual utterances, hooks solidly hooking as honed from the various instrumental and melodic turns. It’ll feel a lot like summer even after the summer is gone.

There’s a kind of free-form fragility you expect to combust early doors but instead it thrives within the habitat of that gentle rumble and tonal canton. Sometimes the drums stagger, always finding their feet. The specimen of the feeling has been preserved in rare and unflawed form in that terrifying and hopeful manner only art allows.

“mother nature gets my goat/she just needs a neck to choke/so when she grabs me by the throat/I won’t be surprised”

There’s plenty of finesse that’s gone into it; the bass step-down playing off the established guitar lead, the snare snapping in a manner that awakens but only gently obliterates your brain, the backing vocal’s sustained waver girding the latter stages of a verse, a few symbol splashes toward the credits.

“I won’t help you escape, sorry / you tried so hard to get out of your body,”

The digital track is $1.50 USD on the bandcamp. Is a magic incantation worth that? Or you can repeatedly stream it on that other app I’m morally obliged not to link to. But you’ll have to play it 7,500 to get to the $1.50. Your assignment is to pair it with Gabriel Herrera Torres’ “The Motorcyclist’s Happiness Won’t Fit Into His Suit” and reservedly rejoice in a private ceremony of your choosing.

TRACK | Goon – Death Spells

5/5 golden merles

With “Death Spells,” Kenny Becker and Goon have again (and again) produced some of the most engaging melodic psych folk around. In the elaborately warped structure you are agreeably consumed, intricacies compiling and enveloping, comfortably saturating the self without obliterating it. Some trick.

“Death spells are coming down / don’t go outside.” That’s how it begins. It really seems to me like some small banner held aloft in attempt to redeem the medium from utter ruin. Its composition and manner of maneuvering stands out like a healthy thumb amidst the swollen hand and arm and body and world at large.

Why don’t more people do this, don’t even seem to desire it? Probably because it is difficult. For most songwriters, after a couple of bars the intention is lost or staggers. After a couple iterations the melody conforms to a bare, essential framework, the tendrils and impulses are shorn and hewn for functionality, reproducibility. While writing a song you have to remember it.

There’s a fair amount of bravery to desire this type of expansion. And it’s something the maker must consider during the making, from the outset, as desirable. The risk of either excess, mathematical purity or utterly indistinct irrelevance, begs for a balance. And the only scale is an intuitive understanding of form and the history of shared forms/symbols with the audience. Awareness and ability do not often go hand in hand.

It breaks my brain that the first reviews of Goon on this blog are now 3 years old for how fresh the tracks still sound, timeless I guess. The track is $2 on the bandcamp.

If you like it, see somewhat similar operators: memory card, Melaina Kol, Windowsill. This is the direction (anti)folk should move into and a good illustration of how to incorporate uncertainty into the model without losing the essence, a bridge that has been burned but remains traversable.

Short recommendation:
For a similar level of attention to detail and world building, see Georges Schwizgebel, “78 Tours.“

TRACK | Casual Technicians – Dark Matter Falling

5/5 golden merles

America’s heart is effectively vestigial, the body running on delusion alone. But every now and again it beats, startling and amusing us.

Folk rock, alt country, freak folk, anti-folk; whatever dendritic subgenre Casual Technician’s “Dark Matter Falling” roughly fits into beyond Rock, these are things that exist in a state of defiance to the grotesque bulk of another definition. Please remember that the heart is also an outlier in relation to the other organs and would be considered an outcast among them.

We don’t need to retread that in the general appraisal Folk lacks self awareness and Country‘s sick bravado and sweetness makes me want to peacefully disassociate into an eternal coma, god willing, at the expense of my demonic private insurers.

But on the periphery and in the shadowy wasteland of upstate New York there exists at least one aggregated cabal of Portlanders intent on redeeming noise and structuring it in a manner that makes people feel whole and not diminished. If you’re familiar with Townes, Csehak, Von Schleicher, and Van Gaalen (North American, at least), it’s a bit like these things.

A large part of it’s glory is the celebration of real collaboration, unions of narration and melodic intentions merging. The contrasts and collisions are all of similar quality and keep it from congealing.

Otherwise it’s just experiment and invention informed by history but not beholden to it, offered up thoughtfully without conceding an opulent melodic core, conducted with utmost conviction and replete with distinct language. Maybe it seems easy when put like that, but it isn’t.

There are two super strong singles already up. Cassette via Repeating Cloud on 11/15/24. Digital on the bandcamp for $7.

TRACK | Alas de Liona – Violet

5/5 golden merles

Art more than anything I know allows for the contorting of bad fate to good. A negative occurrence, through studied observation and documentation, can be subverted from a collapsed, crushing roofbeam into a fundamental pillar of support, so long as you don’t give the last word to god or coincidence or whatever. The universe tends toward entropy, but we are the arbiter of whether or not it succeeds.

Alas de Liona’s excellent indie pop track “Violet” reminds me of this sardonic repartee regarding nightmares: “Don’t worry. You were just having a bad dream. Heavily influenced by your nightmarish life.”

The lyricism present is rigorously bound to the melody but doesn’t suffer from it: “Victorious,” “Curious” (in the sense of unusual/of interest), “lamplight,” and the dream-based staircase ascent all hold a kind of balance between minimalism and tactically elaborated grandeur.

The non-lexical ligatures/ligaments give binding and body to what would otherwise be more ephemeral, negative space. It can also act as a symbolic representation of the quasi-coherent language of the dream, if you like. In either case, it’s a really fine melodic and semi-percussive foundation for the work, and a rewarding, chimeric balance of design and function.

There are several points in the production in which an abrupt fade or swell emerges, synth & orchestral, and that variance is well designed to distinguish segments amidst the steady delivering of the melodic spell. That intermittent puncture adds depth to the form that might otherwise go unnoticed or implied but invisible. It is not employed enough in most other production in the name of uniformity, cohesion, or some such vile and compromised thinking.

Lu Xun wrote that “Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.” The cataloging of the event makes a map and the map becomes a shared experience. The map makes walking in the woods a joy instead of certain death.

It’s a strong track of lofty hooks, offering commiseration and mapping out subconscious space you didn’t know you shared. I am morally obligated not to link to spotify, but please see the soundcloud above, youtube video, or follow on bandcamp for more.

TRACK | Merce Lemon – Backyard Lover

5/5 golden merles

Sometimes the magic trick isn’t a slight of hand. Though often the case, it isn’t always derived from a dexterity of muscle memory achieved through practiced repetition coupled to a misdirection which makes it seem as though something incredible has happened. Sometimes a kind of magic is derived from slowing down. Or reexamining what is plainly visible but has been taken for granted. It is the exception to the rule but also remarkable. This is that second one.

Language is complex, small manipulations of its channels and ruts can have a cumulatively outsized effect.

In “Backyard Lovers” pauses are pulled apart, lines are staggered to warp or embolden them. It is a valuable offer for a free and safe means of disoriented coherency. The perspective shifts. The familiar is made a bit exceptional. It speaks in the language you speak, but it expands that language. It appears in a recognizable indie/folk rock arrangement, but it extends the possible combination of elements through some frankness and some creative problem solving otherwise known as invention.

Another way I find it to be good is that sometimes you can let a melody go and it comes back to you stronger. That takes some strong kind of confidence and it’s easy to lose in the process of making. In writing the song you’ve got to remember it; the more subtle its shifts and elaborations, the harder it is to keep the thread from tangling up and knotting here or there. There are many elements to this particular making that seem sheerly intuitive and others that seem deftly calculated.

For example, late on there’s an assemblage of attributes listed that don’t fit the earlier structure, compiled as an addendum between two instrumental passages. It’s placement is a little unusual, but it is adding significant, palpable depth and nuance to the portrayal of the world as it has been uttered into being. Instead of binding back into the chorus at the end and the edge of the track, the bridge leads out of the world, back to this one or another, whatever you prefer.

This song was found through the tireless and obscene scouting of Various Small Flames and you should go read that blog. Vinyls and Tapes from Darling Records, and preorder the files on the bandcamp; arriving on Sept. 27th.

TRACK | Little Oil – Hey Judas

5/5 golden merles

Coming 2nd among Twelve Songs, Little Oil’s “Hey Judas” is a psych-folk tune composed of deftly piercing hooks dispensing immense compassion. Piano’s plonk and murmuring synths ferry the arbitration neatly forward, familiar myths reconfigure, agreeably heralded in the heat of the room. The melodic components are strong. The envoy offers consolation, there’s very little dread to be found within a context usually larded with it, only sunny reconciliation.

How to even begin to approach this subject and themes in its gilded iron sarcophagus, or deflect the baggage of the bastards who claim its copyright?

The answer is: orthogonally, reinventing suppositions around base symbols we’re all locally steeped in, the reframing of the frame within another. Or just generally with a little innovation and the warmth distinct to those who remain in the world.

There’s plenty of good examples within the approximate genre to pull from and a nice suitable lineage. “Hey Judas” slides into place among other fine tracks such as Loose Fur’s “The Ruling Class,” Brian Jonestown Massacre’s “The Ballad of Jim Jones,” Page France’s full “Hello, Dear Wind,” Doug Marsch’s rendition of “Woke up this morning with my mind (staying on Jesus).”

The whole set has a lot of these same sensibilities, cutting melodies, rich images placed aside non-lexical grooves and is worth investigating. Cassettes from Fountain Inc. and digital are $12 on the Bandcamp.

TRACK | Mo Troper – For You To Sing

5/5 golden merles

Good and due praise has been delivered to Mo Troper’s new tune “For You To Sing.” The recent track is an inspired calibration of power pop instrumentation. The only slack is intentional and left to reverberate with complimentary tone, a pure slice of steel and nickel pluck and glimmer. Jealousy and rivalry ferment in syrupy crystalline tones that exceptionally accent the chronicler’s annoyed-anguish. It’s pretty much timeless as far as the run of our lifetimes is concerned and the embodiment of dancing in degraded states underneath an outsized heart.

Guitar leads and vocal melodies interweave in a manner in which each subsection is given room to breathe and compliment every subsequent element. There’s also a good lesson in here concerning how to captivate through storytelling within the medium. From the first ‘well, (pause)’ the narrative lines alter in subtle variations that elaborate on the stakes and intentions, cohesive and reliably unreliable.

It’s built so finely in these numerous elaborations, seeking and retaining rich texture and idiosyncratic lyrical twist that works to buffer it from the passage of time. There’s too much good and unique character to it, built up over eons of influence, reaching beyond the notes and lines at something larger, that any imitators would almost by definition fail to replicate.

Internally bleeding, I really loved MTV and had it among the best records of 2022. Really looking forward to the futures worthy concocting. $1 on the bandcamp for the single.

TRACK | Max García Conover – 5 to 4 (ft. paula prieto)

5/5 golden merles

In Max García Conover’s “5 to 4” there is an attempt to reclaim wonder from the pit of kitsch, and dance delicately around that border, lifting. It’s got rare quality and a kind of playful but ruthless cunning that keeps the lines fresh and rewards instead of the normal, standardized route of punishing attention. A novel approach. The EP set is “somewhat inspired by a suitcase full of letters my grandfather wrote to my grandmother in the 1940s,” when she was in a hospital for the consumptive poor and he was a different person.

The EP has a good concept and a better execution, most of the value situated in its coherent perspective and phrasing. The featured track including killer lines like “The endless metal barbed in metal,” and “it came down just like you said it would, five to four against the poor,” landing resoundingly within the rhyming scheme.

And that feels not too distanced from Townes or Woody, far more in line with that school than the modern conception of folk that always seems to diminish in its refinement of style above substance, paralleling our diets and or assorted gods. There is a great rarity with which folk music seems relevant to me, with this calibrated style and substance, feel and fondant. It’s been given such a bad name through regular consumption that it feels such a shock when you do get a dose of the decent.

Found and stolen from the esteemed scouting of Jon Doyle at VariousSmallFlames.co.uk. Everything in Winter EP is $5 on the bandcamp.

TRACK | Jason Hill – They Like Me, They Love Me

5/5 golden merles

Experimental LA pop rock from Jason Hill, “They Like Me, They Love Me” is a dreamy and delicately disoriented tune. Lyrically ponderous, an obsessive narrative yarn is delivered concerning personal presentation and the series stories that ultimately construct the self. The tale is told over some faded percussive gears and accented with a richly detailed accompaniment that allows the 4:45 runtime to feel positively tight. There’s a lot of pretty shimmer coinciding with the dreary divulging, everything broken up in an intriguing elaboration.

The tune has rightly captured the feel of an interrogation, including the competing of illusions and a progressively faltering devotion to a lie. A cello punctuates the middle movements as the rhythm guitar sways across the soundscape, dancing by itself on the periphery. Vocal layers clamber along the octaves, corroborating in the chorus half the time, probably contradicting elsewhere. All of that lumbers harmoniously along, graceful enough to warrant further study.

There’s a great warm wrath to it, derived from fermented fog and bottled in. The track was featured in Netflix’s The Confession Killer and written from the perspective of Henry Lee Lucas, “once suspected to be the biggest serial killer of all time but was really just a serial liar.” It stands up on its own, the wilted and creaking confessional, but you get the feeling there’s further illumination in the coupling of these spectacles. What’s the harm in hearing what they have to say?