Dream-Folk

Today’s Track: Maia Friedman – ‘First To Love’

March 21, 2022 — Leave a comment
Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Under The New Light’ (LP) (Released on 11th March 2022) (via Last Gang Records)

Good Morning to you! This is hard-working writer and aspiring radio producer Jacob Braybrooke, and the time has finally come for me to keep your ears entertained by yet another daily track on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Maia Friedman was already a skilled vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter before she even embarked on a solo career, as you may already know Friedman from her roles in the Brooklyn-based indie rock bands Dirty Projectors and Coco. Growing up in the Sierra national forest region of the Central California area with her father (a film editor) and her mother (a Jungian Psychoanalyst), Friedman began learning how to play instruments at a very young age and she has since become a big part of her local music scenes for her various roles in musical projects including Toebow, Bobby and Uki Ika Ai – as she joked to Melody Maker in an interview, “Collaborating gives me the juice”, a few weeks ago. Her latest full-length album – ‘Under The New Light’ – finds Friedman undertaking the role of a spiritual comforter and a serene healer for the listener, where she tackles the deep contrast between topics such as intimacy and growth, and light and darkness, throughout the duration of the long-awaited solo record. She began working on the material four years ago as she balanced putting the track listing together with her duties of being a music teacher in New York. Dan Molad, her fellow band-mate from Coco, helped her to produce the album. Additional work also came by way of her collaborators Tom Deis and Peter Lalish. Check out the single – ‘First To Love’ – below.

‘First To Love’ is given even deeper meanings by the aid of the Joshua Kilcoyne-directed music video, and Maia Friedman says of the new cut, “It is a humbling privilege to love someone in all their humanness and imperfection, to not only support but celebrate them through their journey of growth and exploration, to be by their side as they evolve into new versions of themselves”, adding that her lyrics roughly translate to, “I will love even the deepest layers of who and what you are. A question I pose to myself is, what if this person were me?”, in her press statement. Her ethereal track starts off with glitched Synths that replicate the sound of a heart monitor of a hospital to my mind, a polished sequence which runs throughout the track, and they are softly set against the backdrop of a warmly acoustic guitar melody and a soft bassline. Lyrics like “Look as the clouds pass overhead/I will count them until the daylight ends” and “Wait as the roots find their way/They’ll grow deeper with each passing day” are softly spoken and they carry the verses with a low-lit and wide-eyed tone. The chorus features more swooping and direct refrains like “Peel away/Keeping me up through the night” and “Escape/Be whatever you like” that position Friedman in a unique sense of directly addressing you as her audience, with the details of her personal situations feeling a little enigmatic in favour of giving you a space of reflection and free-wheeling tranquility as a listener. I feel like these more Folk-inspired sections recalls the cinematic soundtrack style of her work in Coco, but it goes quite far beyond an ‘Expansion Pack’ mentality of that sound as the intriguing electronic textures and the whimsical Classical influences of the serene vocals feel different enough to her material with those other projects. Overall, ‘First To Love’ is a bit of a slow burn, but it builds up to a nice sense of energy and it has a strong emotive core that is filled with wistfully produced Strings and warm Dream-Pop instrumentation that placed an emphasis on the most smallest and profound aspects of what it means to be a human and the details of subjects like sensuality and touch with an in-depth contrast that finds her striking out sturdily, as a relatable songwriter.

Pictured: Maia Friedman in Coco (along with Dan Molad & Oliver Hill) (2021) (Photo Credit: Stella Hartmann)

If you’d like to hear some of the magic that Maia has created in Coco – look no further.

‘Last Of The Loving’ (2020) – https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/10/22/todays-track-coco-last-of-the-loving/

‘Come Along’ (2021) – https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2021/12/06/todays-track-coco-come-along/

Pictured: Cover Art for Coco’s ‘Last of The Loving” (Single) (Released on 4th August, 2020) (via FCA Records)

That brings me to the end of the page for another day! I have little else to say, other than to thank you for checking out what I had to share with you for today, as your support is always highly appreciated by me. I’ll be back tomorrow to review one of the promotional singles from an imminent album being put out by a TrumsØ-formed Progressive House and Dark Ambient duo whose achievements include two Grammy Awards nominations, some worldwide tour performances, and a Robyn collaboration.

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Today’s Track: Aldous Harding – ‘Lawn’

February 24, 2022 — Leave a comment
Pictured: Aldous Harding performing a live set for ‘Morning Goes Eclectic’ at KCRW (2019) (Photo by Elli Lauren)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for us to get invested in yet another daily track on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of new music every day! Ever since being scouted by her fellow New Zealand-born musician Anika Moe, who came across Aldous Harding when she was busking outside of the venue that Moe was going to be performing at, who asked her to support her on that fateful night, the Lyttelton-born Alternative Folk anomaly of Aldous Harding has added a list of impressive credits to her resume despite still feeling relatively fresh for my ears. She scored an IMPALA’s European Album of The Year award nomination for 2017’s ‘Party’ and she won the APRA Silver Scroll Award in 2019 for her track ‘The Barrel’ taken from her third studio album, ‘Designer’. She has released music through various labels like 4AD, Spunk and Flying Nun, and she’s also proven to be a good collaborator for the likes of Perfume Genius, Fenne Lily and Marlon Williams over the years too. Next month, Harding is adding another album to her repertoire as her fifth full-length studio LP effort – ‘Warm Chris’ – is set to be released on March 25th, 2022 via 4AD. She will hit the UK and Europe for a tour in support of the new record in the Spring, with tour dates in North America to follow later in the summer. The new album was recorded at Rockfield Studios in Wales with producer John Parish. ‘Lawn’ is the lead single, and it comes accompanied by a reptile-themed music video which Harding co-directed with Martin Sagadin, a longtime collaborator, and it features a quirky cameo from Iggy Pop. Lets check it out.

“It sounds to me like there’s something completely new happening with my voice”, Harding told BBC Radio 6 Music in a recent interview about her new LP ‘Warm Chris’, where she added, “The vocals are tiny. I won’t try to speak about sound too much, because it’s here, and I don’t want to ruin or create a surprise. It reminds me personally and musically of a large horse trying to keep up with a train”, in her discussion about her follow-up to her one-off single ‘Old Peel’ that she released in 2021. Her vocals clearly become a point for emphasis on ‘Lawn’, where she stretches her vocals with a high-range that goes beyond her prior boundaries a little bit. She hacks away at the dead weight of a failing relationship lyrically, with some refrains like “Doors are the way you leave/Just be the way you are/Just be out and free/Can you imagine me?” and “If you’re not for me/Guess I’m not for you/I will enjoy the blue/I am confused by you” that are whimsical in tone and they retain a quirky energy throughout the track, but they also feel concise and to-the-point when you really sit and read between the lines. The instrumentation has a similar effect of pairing a lean and accessible arrangement with slow-moving melodicism that feels a little cerebral, too, in texture. The sparse smatterings of Drums and the steady bass melodies complement the vocals, where she confesses her annoyance on wasting time on “Writing b-sides” with her former partner and she dares herself to charge into the unknown with a proud declaration at the end, and she finds a new sense of liberation after being severed by the light shades of disappointment met by the situation of a relationship ending. The source material can feel a little dark in nature, but Harding’s voice has a whimsical and airy ring to it that makes everything flow smoothly and the formula grows from a fairly simplistic Alternative Folk track to something that takes a brazen step into more distinctive territory. Overall, ‘Lawn’ is a track that feels as exciting as it does intriguing, with cerebral acoustic production that is barely melodic enough to create some catchy and eminently listenable hooks, making for a sugar-coated equation of raw grit and gentle Dream-Rock influence which really stands out.

Pictured: Black Vinyl of ‘Warm Chris’ (LP) (Available from March 25th, 2022) (via 4AD/Rough Trade Records)

That brings us to the end of the page for another day – and thank you for your support as always. When you’re finished collecting B-sides, please make sure that you follow @OneTrackAtATim1 on Twitter and follow the site on Facebook to be notified whenever one of my new posts reaches the internet. Tomorrow, I will be marking the second appearance on the blog from a David Le’Aupepe-led alternative rock group from Sydney for ‘New Album Release Fridays’ as they will be releasing their third studio album tomorrow. The band won four awards at the ARIA Music Awards in 2017.

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New Album Release Fridays: Beach House – ‘Once Twice Melody’

February 18, 2022 — Leave a comment
Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Once Twice Melody’ (LP) (Released on February 18th, 2022) (via Sub-Pop Records)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and the time has come for me to give you a sneak peek at one of the weekend’s most exciting new album releases, given that it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! In most typical weeks, my choice for ‘New Album Release Fridays’ on the blog is a highly anticipated affair that we’ve only got two or three singles from at most prior to the big moment of release, however, in the case of ‘Once Twice Melody’ – you can hear three quarters of it already. The latest LP project from the Baltimore, Maryland duo of Victoria LeGrand and Alex Scally, otherwise known as Beach House, a Chamber Pop duo who have been nominated for a GAFFA Award in Sweden, ‘Once Twice Melody’ is effectively a double album that contains 18 tracks that have all been presented in four chapters of four tracks that have seen staggered releases since November 2021, a risky move that notably finds music contributing to the streaming algorithm more closely than ever before. In aid of supporting the behemoth of a record, Beach House will be touring the UK and Europe in May and June 2022, as well as performing alongside fellow Psychedelic acts like Tame Impala and Lorde at this summer’s Primavera Sound Festival. ‘Part 1’ was released on November 10th, 2021 followed by ‘Part 2’ on December 8th, 2021, followed by ‘Part 3’ on January 19th, 2022 and, finally, the final chapter releases today alongside a full release of the project on Vinyl and Streaming. The duo have also recently provided the soundtrack to ‘Marin’s Dreams’, a short film. With their drawing and expansive sound that has been focused on conveying an abstract reflection of a message that idyllic moments are never quite as fruitful as fantasy, I have a lot of faith in LeGrand and Scally to pull out all of the stops with this mammoth of a release. For a sampler, let’s revisit the title track below.

Self-produced entirely by themselves, the ambitious LP project by Beach House was mixed by Alan Moulder, Dave Fridmann, Caesar Edmunds and Trevor Spencer, and it has been recorded over the past two years in a handful of studios spanning across Los Angeles, Baltimore and Cannon Falls. The lyrics for the title track speak of a girl that is placated by her own eccentric imagination, an unnamed character with an enigmatic narrative that we experience with refrains like “Nights fly by in her mind/All along the boulevard” and “She tries to understand/A never, never land” that find LeGrand focusing on the finer details of her mindset and they play out above a gorgeous sequence of looping synths and live drums on the title track. Guitar arpeggios continue to conjure up a sweeping and decorated soundscape that evoke sinking into the grass or the sand from an hourglass slipping through your fingers while LeGrand croons about the sensual slow pace of a hot, gauzy summer’s day. Lyrics like “Days go by/In her eyes/Belle De Jour in front of me” and “The purple on the vine/The velvet deep tree line” find the prismatic mood of the vocals basking in the far-away lands that have been constructed by our shy character’s wandering mind. It feels lush and vibrant as a complete package, with LeGrand and Scally telling a mysterious yet intriguing tale of the illusion of a crystal clear universe of fiction that are polished carefully with intimate Strings and a symphony of creative backing vocals, and yet the idealizations of our leading lady are never truly filled in. The sound simply takes you back to the very core of Shoegaze and Dream Pop music, which is all about filling a simple few melodies with meticulous details and an atmosphere that is simply designed for you to get lost in – and the kicking drums/synths combo of the vivid instrumentation escalate their own levels of intensity as the sprawling sounds move up to a higher scope. Therefore, I have a lot of faith that despite the sheer length of ‘Once Twice Melody’ as a full release, LeGrand and Scally will give the project plenty of depth and variety as to not grow tiresome and justify the length in creating music that doesn’t lose it’s intimacy over a run time. I concur that Beach House are brilliant!

Pictured: Victoria LeGrand and Alex Scally (2018) (Photo Credit: Robert Johannson/InterviewMagazine.com)

I’m off to visit my sister in Kent today, and so I haven’t got any longer to chat about all things music with you for today, but thank you very much for checking out the blog and your support is highly appreciated! If you deeply love your Dream-Pop and your Shoegaze styles of music, you’re also going to enjoy tomorrow’s post, which is why I decided to cover these two tracks so tightly together. It comes from the main solo project of the French multi-instrumentalist and producer Melody Prochet who got a 9/10 score from Drowned In Sound’s Dom Gourlay for her debut studio album in 2013.

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New Year’s Eve 2021 Special: Fleet Foxes – ‘White Winter Hymnal’

December 31, 2021 — Leave a comment
Pictured: Cover Art for ‘Fleet Foxes’ (Self-Titled LP) (Released on June 3rd, 2008) (via Bella Union Records)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and it is time for a fleeting (If you see what I did there…?) moment of cool reflection in the midst of ringing in the New Year, with yet another daily track on the blog, seeing that it has always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Although they took a reasonable hiatus between 2013 and 2016 so that lead singer-songwriter Robin Pecknold could pursue an undergraduate degree, the Washington-based Alternative Folk group of Fleet Foxes have always churned out their strong share of critically acclaimed and commercially successful material over the years and they released their fourth album – ‘Shore’ – as recently as last September via Anti- Records – a very enjoyable record that was featured on my ‘Top 25 Albums Of 2021’ list last January. The band stood up to prominence in mainstream consciousness, however, with the release of their self-titled debut album in 2008 via Bella Union Records. The hit that its associated Simon Raymonde-ran label needed to stay afloat at the time, the retro LP was the band’s first example of blending their refined vocal harmonies and tribalistic lyrical qualities together to widespread acclaim. The album was eventually made available to buy in places as common as your local Tesco’s supermarket shelves after it eventually reached #1 on the UK Albums Chart. Since being considered one of the best albums of the 2000’s and a highly impressive debut release, Fleet Foxes have continued to make ‘White Winter Hymnal’ a popular addition to festive playlists (both befitting of the Christmas and New Year’s season), a Silver-certified single full of beautifully layered vocals that has also been used in media productions like Hulu’s ‘The Path’ and 2015’s ‘Love The Coopers’. The track was also ranked as #66 on Pitchfork’s decade-end list of the greatest singles of the 00’s – and it has been covered by other established names such as television presenter Alexander Armstrong and A-capella act Pentatonix. Get swept away in the sound of ‘White Winter Hymnal’ below.

Issued on 7″ Vinyl as well as the digital MP3 format, ‘White Winter Hymnal’ was written by Pecknold from personal experience, as he was inspired to write the lyrics about a time where his friends ditched him in middle school. Although the lyrics might have been about childhood past, the source of the melody came from the familiar source of Walt Disney. Pecknold recounted to Rolling Stone during an interview in 2012, “The idea was a song like ‘Whistle While You Work’ from Snow White”, adding, “So it started with that very beginning thing, the first kind-of like, melody. And then once the verse was done, it just seemed like it lent itself to repetition”, in the discussion. Beginning with “I was following the pack” as the backing vocals of the band harmoniously overlap each other to capture the melancholy of winter and snow, ‘White Winter Hymnal’ was memorable for creating the effect of a dense cloud of harmonies that mimic a Cathedral reverb. Later lyrics like “White snow red as strawberries in the summertime” and “With scarves of red tied around their throats” feature imagery that is undeniably much stronger and the meaning of the track is left quite ambiguous. However, refrains like “To keep their little heads from falling in the snow” make me think of blindly following a bad influence without considering the repercussions. Instrumentally, the stirring drums and the ascending guitar melodies mimic the feeling of a sled that is riding down a path at a breakneck pace. The minimalist vocals, however, are more likely to convey a sense of contentment and peace, but the cavernous layered harmonies have a frosty and distant sound that relates to a white sheet of ice on a tranquill snowy morning. What was very interesting, and really quite groundbreaking, about the track is that, in seasonal terms, Indie and Pop music often tend to be more celebratory towards the summer season and, therefore, the qualities of a Christmas carol hidden in the melodies are more reminiscent of a traditional hymm and so Fleet Foxes’ ode to cool reflection in the winter was refreshing. Overall, ‘White Winter Hymnal’ had all the makings of a modern classic back in 2008 and that’s a quota that the Grammy-nominated band have fulfilled in 2021 with a recording that still sounds as gorgeous and as nostalgic as the first time it hit the radio airwaves. Cheers to a merry new year!

Pictured: Robin Pecknold (Lead Vocals/Rhythm Guitar), Skyler Skjelset (Mandolin/Lead Guitar/Backing Vocals), Casey Wescott (Keyboard/Synths/Backing Vocals), Christian Wargo (Bass Guitar) and Morgan Henderson (Upright Bass Guitar/Woodwinds/Violin/Saxophone/Percussion) (in 2020) (Photo via PR)

If you told me that Fleet Foxes were covered on the blog more recently – ‘Can I Believe You?’ here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/10/26/todays-track-fleet-foxes-can-i-believe-you/

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Shore’ (LP) (Released on September 22nd, 2020) (via Anti- Records)

That’s all for today and so all I have left to say for you in 2021 is… See you next year! Join me then for a special New Year’s Day edition of my regular posts tomorrow that you’ll really enjoy if you’re a fan of my weekly ‘Way Back Wednesdays’ feature! We’re going to be remembering a well-received late-70’s single by a prominent Scottish figure of the British Folk revival scene in the 60’s and 70’s. Famously described by AllMusic as “one of those mysterious woman songs”, the album of the same title as the song is a #5 hit in the US. The singer used to share a London flat with Paul Simon.

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Today’s Track: Marissa Nadler – ‘If I Could Breathe Underwater’

December 20, 2021 — Leave a comment
Pictured: Marissa Nadler in a promo photoshoot for ‘For My Crimes’ (2018) (Photo via Sacred Bones Records)

Good Morning to you! You are reading the words of Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for you to catch up on some great music from 2021 that may have skipped you by during the first time with yet another daily track on the blog, since it’s always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! If you’ve been a regular follower of my site for a while, you may know that I love a bit of moody, bluesy and sometimes Folk-ish Americana, with artists such as Weyes Blood, Sharon Van Etten and Alexandra Savior being some of my favourites of this style, to name just a few. One of the genre’s most memorable offerings from the past year was ‘The Path Of The Clouds’, an album released in late October by the Boston-based and Washington-born singer-songwriter Marissa Nadler via Bella Union Records. She has managed to sustain a 20-year-plus career, and her latest record was her tenth mainline studio album. She typically swings for a Chamber Folk style of sound with elements of Gothic Rock and Dream-Pop mixed into the cauldron, but myself and a few online publications, such as Pitchfork and The Boston Globe, have each also noticed an underlying influence of Black Metal within her production too, an element of her mezzo-soprano vocals and dark instrumentation that sets her apart from other fine artists of the genre. Raised as Jewish, Nadler studied Painting at the Rhode Island School Of Design, where she learned artistic drawing techniques such as illustration, bookbinding, woodcarving and encaustic painting while singing at Open Mic Nights in the Providence area while she achieved a bachelor’s degree and a Master’s degree a year later, and the hard effort that she puts into the visual storytelling of her music is evident through her unique background in Art Education, later touring with Drone Metal bands like Earth and the American primitive guitarist Jack Rose. Like many others, the origins of ‘The Path Of The Clouds’ were established during the Covid-19 pandemic, where she spent her time of self-isolation by watching repeats of the True Crime documentary series ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ and began writing songs about, and inspired by, the subjects of the series through their perspective. Receiving a wealth of positive reviews throughout NME, UNCUT, Record Collector, MOJO and more, Nadler fulfilled her goal of immortalizing the stories of people who deserve to be told on the recent LP. She also enlisted guests like Mercury Rev’s Jesse Chandler and multi-instrumentalist Milky Burgess. Her longtime friend Mary Littlemore, who plays the Cosmic Harp, features on Nadler’s wistful song ‘If I Could Breathe Underwater’ below.

Accompanied by an official music video directed and edited by Jenni Hensler with cinematography by Nick Fancher that depicts a preternatural world of fiction where Nadler changes the colour of the water and the sky, while floating effortlessly through a lake, becoming one with the colours and the ink, Nadler says, “When I wrote ‘If I Could Breathe Underwater’, I was contemplating the possibilities of possessing various superhuman powers: teleportation, aquatic breathing, extrasensory protection, and time travel to name a few. As a lyrical device, I married those powers with events in my life, wondering if and how they could change the past or predict the future”, in her press release. ‘Ethereal’ seems like an over-used word to me in the music press of today, but, really, there’s no better word to use for describing the textures of Nadler’s soundscape craftwork here, using a pulsating keyboard rhythm and a delicate, seductive bassline to create a light and flute-like series of sounds. Lyrics like “Shapeshifter, a cloud above your door/Late winter, like a storm” merge together with a poetic fluidity that conjures up a Shoegazing atmosphere and creates some menacing, but defiant, chords that feel as if they’re skipping weightlessly between a row of imaginary clouds while carrying an anchoring resonance through the zoned-out state of the subtle grooves of her rhythm guitar melodies. Lyrics like “If I could bring the moon down/So the day would never come/Would you fly, circle around the sun?” ponder something more philosophical and shore up against her vocals like the tide slowly coming in during a frosty morning at the seaside. Overall, it feels like perfect listening for the dry and icy December or January season of the year, as the melodies feel a bit ‘dreary’ in a way. That’s usually a derogatory statement, but what I really mean to state is that her sound is very cerebral while just about reaching some melodic heights that make it feel catchy enough to resonate. Moreover, the very layered and hallucinatory toolkit of Mary Littlemore’s cosmic harp echo the tone of the story nicely, as to bring the conceit of the song’s title to life in a fictional dream-state way when met with the consistency of the mildly anthemic guitar beats and the gradually paced Drum riffs. An intricate beauty with plenty of diverse inspiration to it.

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘The Path Of The Clouds’ (LP) (Released on October 29, 2021) (via Bella Union Records)

That’s all for now! It is almost time to float away into the good times of Christmas in just a few days away, and so we will be soldiering on with our ‘Countdown To Christmas 2021’ series tomorrow with a brand new and original Christmas single that is also raising money for Feed The Homeless in Bristol. It comes from an equally talented female solo artist who released her debut self-titled LP on Invada Records last year with a follow-up EP releasing earlier this year. She also performed ‘Mork ‘N’ Mindy’ with Sleaford Mods on ‘Later With Jools Holland’ on BBC Two earlier this year.

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Countdown To Christmas 2021: Julien Baker – ‘A Dreamer’s Holiday’

December 11, 2021 — Leave a comment
Pictured: Cover Art for ‘A Dreamer’s Holiday’ (Single) (Re-issued on November 29, 2021) (via Matador Records)

Good Morning to you! You are reading the words of Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for you to decide upon all of your last-minute Christmas gift purchases straight after reading our latest installment of this year’s ‘Countdown To Christmas’ on One Track At A Time, not forgetting that it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of new music every day! ‘A Dreamer’s Holiday’ is a recent cover of the 1945 track of the same title that was originally performed by Perry Como, which the Tennessae-based 26-year-old indie rock singer songwriter Julien Baker released for a ‘Spotify Singles’ collection of Christmas covers by alternative artists in late 2020, exclusively issued for the conglomerate streaming platform – with Black Pumas, Jazmine Sullivan, Ruston Kelly and Dashboard Confessional also appearing on the extended play. Baker has recently re-uploaded the cover to her Bandcamp page, however, and so the 12 month exclusivity deal must have expired, meaning that it is now available to actually buy or download for the first time and it is technically a brand new release if you look at it one way. You may already know that Baker was a member of the Boygenius trio that has similarly launched the solo careers of Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus to the stratosphere in recent years, and Baker’s latest main release was ‘Little Oblivions’, an album that she released in February to solid acclaim and decent commercial success. On the record, she tackled the theme of underlying darkness inside the corners of her mind. Themes such as sobriety, heartache, relapse, failure and redemption were explored on the album, which was mixed by Craig Silvey (Florence & The Machine, The National, Arcade Fire) and engineered by Calvin Lauber, and she recorded it at home in Memphis. ‘A Dreamer’s Holiday’ has only been covered once before by Willie Nelson in 1983. Let’s hear Baker’s spin on the old formula below.

“I chose ‘A Dreamer’s Holiday’ because I found it incredibly unique as far as holiday songs are concerned. It’s a very understated song – both lyrically and musically; while it’s technically about a ‘holiday’, it doesn’t reference any specific holiday theme, it leaves the lyrics a bit more open-ended”, Julien Baker explained last year, adding, “It’s the same way with the music – the chord structure is complicated but surprisingly timeless to me even though the song itself is over 70 years old. It’s the kind of song whose arrangement can be re-imagined so many times, and I love the feeling of sonic potential a single like that gives me”, as she discusses how the task of tackling ‘A Dreamer’s Holiday’ could be considered a challenging one, but her own cover of the track passes off well due to her hard work and determination. The Tennessee native sets the mood with “Climb aboard a butterfly and take off on the breeze” for her daydream-like opening, using some vulnerable finger-style guitar playing before the gentle Horn section enters the picture, with Baker promising to “Make it a long vacation/Time, there’s plenty of” as her reverb-drenched vocal tones create some space for an inviting Piano solo to join the soundscape, with Baker encouraging us to “Help yourself to happiness/Close your eyes and concentrate” prior to the main musical hook of “You will feel terrific when you come down to earth/From a Dreamer’s Holiday” as the tight track draws to it’s natural conclusion. Although not mentioning ‘Christmas’ as a key concept, it feels suitable enough for the season. Baker’s vocals and laidback production provide a mellow quality to the original source material, while her minimalist take on the instrumentation and her tactile guitar melodies would still feel cohesive with the music found on her recent album ‘Little Oblivions’ as the track feels like a somewhat underground choice for a cover version. While the groundwork of the airy String-based scatterings and the subtle scratches of her crackling Vinyl production bears resemblance to her said latest album, sharing similarities with the style of her chronological music, it replaces the more morbid lyricism of that record with lyrics that are brighter. It never gets too excitable and Baker thankfully doesn’t feel the need to place some filler vocals or reach into the realms of a high pitch solo for this, and so I think the track is a good merger between the feelings of anticipation and longing that she wanted to portray. Really, it’s her vocal performance that gets the emphasis here, and she gives the track a relatively short duration so the themes don’t overstay their welcome. Overall, this was a lovely little cover that got the job done and Baker is a true musician having played all, or nearly all, of her instruments on this here track, with some newfound textures that were edited in her signature style. A sumptuous addition to your playlist.

Pictured: Julien Baker in promotional artwork for a ‘Spotify Singles’ collection (2020) (Photo by Alysse Gafken/PR)

‘Little Oblivions’ was previously a pick for ‘New Album Release Fridays’ on the site. We covered ‘Hardline’ here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2021/02/26/new-album-release-friday-julien-baker-hardline/

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Little Oblivions’ (LP) (Released on February 26th, 2021) (via Matador Records)

That’s all for now! I’ll be taking my own ‘Dreamer’s Holiday’ tomorrow morning as Father Christmas himself will be spreading his share of seasonal cheer by introducing you to one of his favourite edgy hits for ‘Scuzz Sundays’. He’s told me to relay that it will be coming from a legendary Brooklyn native Synth Punk band whose leader is the co-founder of DFA Records. Their 2007 album ‘Sound Of Silver’ was listed as one of the 666 greatest albums of all time by KEXP listeners during a poll finished in 2019.

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New Album Release Fridays: Lala Lala – “DIVER”

October 8, 2021 — Leave a comment
  • Pictured: Cover Art for ‘I Want The Door To Open’ (LP) (Released on October 8, 2021) (via Hardly Art)

Good Morning to you! My name is Jacob Braybrooke, and it is time for us to enjoy a deeper dive into one of the weekend’s zestiest new album releases, since it’s always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! October 8th. It also happens to be a Friday, and so that means new albums from the likes of the Canadian Experimental marvels BadBadNotGood, LA-based Bedroom Pop prodigies Magdalena Bay, one half of Warwick-based Alt-Pop duo Cash+David in the form of Liz Lawrence, the criminally underrated Louisa Roach-led Wirral-formed Post-Punk group She Drew The Gun and former Feels member Shannon Lay all hitting the shelves of your nearest record shop today. However, ‘DIVER’ is a gorgeous track that’s been issued as a single from ‘I Want The Door To Open’, the third solo album in the discography of Lala Lala, which is the Indie Rock project of the Chicago-based singer-songwriter Lillie West. She began making music when she attended the School Of The Art Institute in Chicago and became involved in the city’s local music scene after being encouraged by a close friend to buy a guitar from Craigslist, after she was raised up in Los Angeles and London. Since then, West has been heard on ‘Siren 042’, a collaboration with Yoni Wolf, the frontman of the Alternative Hip-Hop band WHY?, and she performed at the Pitchfork Music Festival in 2019. She has also toured the US with Death Cab For Cutie and Better Oblivion Community Center, and she has received praised for her “ability to offset sharp lyricism with shimmering guitar and singalong-worthy vocal refrains” by Adelaide Sandstrom, a respected writer for NPR Music. Her new LP is the follow-up to 2016’s self-released ‘Sleepyheads’ and her critically-acclaimed 2018 follow-up record ‘The Lamb’, with the album’s themes being inspired by a novel ‘Manhattan Beach’ by Jennifer Egan. Take ‘DIVER’ for a spin below.

The new album boasts numerous guests like Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard, poet Kara Jackson, Adam Schatz from Landlady, fellow Chicago scene musician Christian Lee Hutson, and a few others, and West has described the project herself as “I Want The Door To Open’s a musical quest undertaken with the knowledge that the titular door may open; but is is through falling in love with the quest itself that one may find the next closest thing”, adding, “It’s a bold exploration of persona and presence from an artist questioning how to be herself fully in a world where the self is in constant negotiation”, in her own words. The sound of ‘DIVER’ certainly fits the glacial warmth of the arctic landscapes of the music video and the icy white visuals of the LP’s cover artwork, with some Baroque instrumentation and the slowly ascending backing vocals that evoke a theatrical, choir-like sound. Lyrics like “I’m Sisyphus/You’re the witness/It’s intimate, the violence/It’s palpable to want it all” feel visual and poetic too, and these sequences are tidily set against the backdrop of a lo-fi distortion and some layered, wide open drumming. There are moments of orchestral and ethereal musicality here, especially in the chorus where she uses lyrics like “Your face distorted in the window/Swimming out towards my new life” to sing about discovering a new era in your life and recognizing the swooping thematic tides of change, but later lyrics like “All my time I have is diamonds/Rolling around my head” acknowledge a struggle of developing yourself to meet your goals as one that never truly ends. It feels like a warm introduction to the rest of the ideas that West has likened to exploring on the new record, with an Avant-Pop air of Kate Bush or Tom Waites to connect the abstract musicality together, and so this is a very nice and easily consumable track overall. It’s not necessarily a criticism of her music itself, but I think that a better stage name than ‘Lala Lala’ would make me a bit more likely to take her as seriously as she would like me to as a musician, as it sounds more like she’s one of the younger siblings of the Teletubbies currently. That nitpick aside, I enjoyed the heartfelt personal reflection and the winter sound of the track and the critics seem to love her, and so I’m sure the new record will make for a fascinating listen – although she cannot stare directly at it.

  • Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘The Lamb’ (LP) (Released on September 28th, 2018) (via Hardly Art)

That brings us to the end of today’s musical musing, and thank you a lot for your continued support with the blog. On a related note, please subscribe to my new podcast – ‘The Subculture Sessions’ – on Spotify for more regular content like this post. I’ll be back tomorrow with an in-depth look at a big new collaboration from a 00’s indie pop staple who have remixed the likes of Kate Nash and Sebastien Teller, and a rising star who sings in Spanish and English – and has signed with RCA Records.

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Today’s Track: Rodrigo Amarante – “Tango”

September 21, 2021 — Leave a comment
  • Pictured: Rodrigo Amarante performing ‘Raul Campos’ for LAMC (2016) (Photo by Jack Vartoogian)

Good Afternoon to you! My name is Jacob Braybrooke, and the time has come for me to get typing up on the blog for another daily track on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Today’s track comes from the Brazillian indie Folk multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and lyricist Rodrigo Amarante, who has just released his first solo album in seven years – since 2013’s ‘Cavolo’ – on the Polyvinyl Records label. Amarante has worked as a composer and arranger for a selection of Brazillian alternative soul groups like Los Hermanos, Orquestra Imperial and Little Joy, and enthusiastic Netflix fans may know that he wrote and performed ‘Tuyo’, the theme track for the streaming site’s original TV series ‘Narcos’ and ‘Narcos: Mexico’ that aired in 2015 and 2018, respectively. During his career, Rodrigo has rubbed shoulders with Brazillian Tropicalia movement icons Gilberto Gil and Gal Costa, and he performed at the Latin American Music Conference in 2017. He also appeared as a guest on the ‘World Cafe’ podcast for NPR Music back in August. His latest album, ‘Drama’, was released to positive reviews at the end of July, and it thematically explores the topic of masculinity in the modern world. ‘Tango’ is one of the few tracks on the new LP’s listing to be sung entirely in English, and so it serves as a great introduction to his work for Western audiences. As we already know, it takes two to Tango (That was bad…) and so he’s brought on his frequent collaborator – the Los Angeles-based and London-born musician Cornelia Murr – on board for some airy backing vocals on the soulful track. Check it out below.

“When I wrote this song I was projecting the idea of a love that lasts, one that is mutually supportive and reliable, safe in that sense, and I can’t imagine that being possible without a good dose of sense of humour”, Rodrigo Amarante told Northern Transmissions about ‘Tango’ in a press release, elaborating, “That seems to be the only way to get through it, the hard times. The song describes this love through what appears as dance instructions, pleads, the co-ordination of movements.” in his notes. ‘Tango’ certainly feels like a natural product of this hint of realization told by the two dancers in the music video, with the choreography adding a sense of constancy that the dream-like guitar melodies can only hint at. Fragility shines through Amarante’s voice, as he recites romantic lyrics like “Catch me if you can again/Hold me if I fall, You’ll know when” atop the steady percussive backdrop and the twangy acoustic guitar riffs that feel influenced by Reggae as the sound also makes for a nicely chilled out beach listen. The first-person perspective switches to more of a duet vocal format towards the end of the track, with Amarante and backing vocalist Murr telling the story of lovers meeting on the dancefloor, while the beats remain gentle and fairly swooning in style. The vocals counter one another nicely due to the swaying rhythms, and the relatively quiet Horn sections emerge and retreat from the picture in due course, providing another sultry element for the two vocalists to produce a laidback sound from. Overall, there are lots of elements in ‘Tango’ that work really strongly, from the settled, worry-free and radiant mood that it creates, to the more subtle instrumentation that complements the romanticism of the sound nicely as well, while the track also manages to capture elements of Tropicalia and Rocksteady from the past without sounding terribly outdated, albeit not sounding majorly current either. A quite elegant little piece of Folk that exhibits the precise footwork of the titular dance.

  • Pictured: Cover Art for ‘Drama’ (LP) (Released on July 16th, 2021) (via Polyvinyl Records)

That’s all for now! Thank you for joining me on the blog for a few moments and I’ll be back tomorrow for ‘Way Back Wednesdays’ as we take a break from my own recent recommendations to revisit the seminal sounds of the past! This week’s pick comes from an 80’s UK Synth-Pop act that have been in some news circles lately because their masterpiece from 1991 – ‘Laughing Stock’ – has celebrated it’s 30th anniversary!

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Today’s Track: Homeshake – “I Know I Know I Know”

September 13, 2021 — Leave a comment
  • Pictured: Vinyl Copy of ‘Under The Weather’ (Released on September 10, 2021) (via Dine Alone Records)

Good Morning to you! You are reading the text of Jacob Braybrooke and, as per usual, the time has come for me to get typing up for another daily track on the blog, because its always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Homeshake (Or HOMESHAKE, as he stylizes it) is the solo Alternative R&B project of the Canadian electronic music singer-songwriter and producer Peter Sagar, who was born and is still currently based in Montreal. He initially got one foot in the door of the music industry as a member of Mac DeMarco’s touring band, and, in 2013, he released his debut solo record as a cassette – ‘The Homeshake Tape’ – through the Fixture Records label. He has quietly amassed five solo studio albums since that time, each of which have been released over the years to a generally favourable reception from the critics. His latest, ‘Under The Weather’, is the follow-up to 2019’s ‘Helium’, and it was released over the past weekend on Dine Alone Records. Mostly written in 2019, the album chronicles the periods of isolation that Sagar has felt before, and during, the Covid-19 pandemic, using the process of equating making music with writing a personal journal. Check out the new single – ‘I Know I Know I Know’ – below.

‘I Know I Know I Know’ comes to us accompanied by the sparkling animated video directed by Keith Rankin, of Giant Claw and Orange Milk Records fame. The director states, “I had been wanting to work with the dancer Azuki Umeda for a while”, saying of the exciting collaboration, “She had made a few pieces of choreography for me, and I put one against the Homeshake song thinking it might be too frantic, but it actually matched perfectly”, adding, “Me and my partner Ellen Thomas came up with an abstracted figure look and did rotoscope animation over the dance sequence, I hope it looks like a dream landscape” in Sagar’s press release. Thriving on a low-lit feel and a smooth low tempo, Sagar creates a slow and sultry love song that feels sentimental and warm for ‘I Know I Know I Know’ as he builds layers with a diversity of minimalist elements. The open guitar chords, the lightly pulsating drum machine riffs, and the percussive bassline work to explore an intimate personal depth, and they are matched with some scintillating keyboard melodies that glisten along to the underlying sweetness of the subtle fluctuations in pacing. Sagar’s lyrics feel sensual and cut to the chase, with lines like “It’s no use/That I’ll never stop loving you” and “It’s crushing me longer than it’s supposed to, Holding me closer than you ought to” that feel a little flirtatious, but Sagar uses a crooner falsetto in his delivery that gets a more shy and fearful emotion across to me, as a listener, with a concise chorus that echoes from its rather subtle increase of tempo. Although a little bit dreary, Sagar does a good job of making his vocals sound quite intriguing and using heartfelt instrumentation to really set up a scene, as he matches the sense of euphoria with solidarity through the hazy sounds of his laidback instrumentals and the differing textures that he creates. The musical equivalent of whisking you into your bed covers.

  • Pictured: Peter Sagar wrapping up ‘Helium’ in his recording studio (2019) (Photo by RedBullMusic.com)

That leaves us with the end of the page, and all I really have left to say is thank you for the support. The fun doesn’t stop there, however, because I’ll be back tomorrow with an in-depth look at some more aggressive music from a new album that quickly became one of the most highly anticipated releases of the summer, having been released in the same month that it had been officially announced. It comes from an electronic music producer and journalist who has been releasing music under several guises since the 90’s. His projects include ICE and Techno Animal, and the project of King Midas Sound (with the poet Roger Robinson and the visual designer Kiki Hitomi).

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New Album Release Fridays: Villagers – “So Simpatico”

August 20, 2021 — Leave a comment
  • Pictured: Cover Art for “Fever Dreams” (LP) (Released on August 20th, 2021) (via Domino Recordings)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke and, as per usual, it’s time for me to get typing up on the blog for yet another daily track on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! This is, of course, Friday – so that means a new crop of LP’s are available today via physical and streaming. New offerings from the likes of Lorde, Orla Gartland, Holy Holy, Jake Bugg, Angel Olsen and Deafheaven are making up a reasonably busy week for fresh music. The record that I’m looking forward to hearing, however, is ‘Fever Dreams’, the 5th studio album from Dublin’s indie folk favourites Villagers. I’m not very familiar with this quintet, at all, but I’m rather optimistic for it because of possibly the most old-fashioned reason of all – I really liked the singles, including the 7-minute epic ‘So Simpatico’, which BBC Radio 6 Music seems to have been hammering the life out of during the daytimes. The group will be playing in my nearest city, at The Junction in Cambridge, in October – and they have been known for winning the Choice Music prize in 2010, and scoring a pair of Mercury Prize nominations. ‘Fever Dreams’ was written and recorded over the space of two years, and it was mixed in the studio by David Wrench (The XX, FKA Twigs). The band’s leader, Conor O’Brien, says “I had an urge to write something that was as generous to the listener as it was to myself. Sometimes, the most delirious states can produce the most ecstatic, euphoric and escapist dreams” about the new record, which is performing well with critics. There’s currently an 84/100 score on Metacritic for this release. Check out the sampler below.

‘So Simpatico’ is “a song of devotion, whether to a person, the self, or the art of being” with a “struggle for authenticity is at its core”, according to O’Brien in his newest press release, and the sprawling Folk ballad comes accompanied by a visual narrative video which was directed by Rosie Barrett, which is matches the lush lyrics with a tale about a sad clown that learns to love himself again. A slow-burner with a story about rekindling a zest for life that has become mundane, ‘So Simpatico’ is a sumptuous combination of a Pop song about the essence of love, and a more cinematic affair which takes some Jazz-oriented cues from Kamasi Washington and Curtis Harding. The lyrics start softly, with a romantic set of sequences like “In the garden you’d lie/In the depths of my mind” that repeat throughout the tune with a dream-like nature. There’s some light percussion and organic strings added to the mix when the beat takes flight, with the use of a Glockenspiel and some floating Piano melodies giving the rich textures a deeper intimacy. The second half of the track uses an extended Saxophone solo and a more subdued mood to swell into an honest refrain from O’Brien, who sings, “The more I know” and “The more I care” as the airy sounds and the emotive instrumentation slows the pace down to a relaxing grind. The majority of the lyrics feel very blissful and light-hearted, designed to uplift the audience, but, to me, a few of the lyrical sequences feel a touch more sinister. There’s an eerie sense of discontent to O’Brien’s voice in the slower sections, but it helps to take his little character on more of a journey by the time that his track’s duration is up. A lovely track that never feels like it has dragged on, despite a long running time, ‘So Simpatico’ has some catchy lyrics and a fantastically emotive core that gives its, at times, “mushy”, songwriting some deeper substance. A blissful listen.

  • Pictured: Conor O’Brien (Lead Vocals), Tommy McLaughlin (Lead Guitar/Backing Vocals), Danny Snow (Bass Guitar), Cormac Curran (Keyboard) and James Byrne (Drums) (2013) (Photo by Mark Nixon)

If you enjoyed the calm style of ‘So Simpatico’, there’s a good chance that you might like the other lead single from the band’s new album, which you can revisit on the blog here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2021/06/03/todays-track-villagers-the-first-day/

  • Pictured: Villagers in promotional artwork for ‘Becoming A Jackal’ (2010) (Photo by Rich Gilligan)

That brings us to the very end of the page for another 24 hour period! Thank you for getting this far with me, and I’ll be back tomorrow to add a little bit of spice to your Saturday with an in-depth review of some sparkling new music from a rather high-profile name and a critically-acclaimed one at that. This Sydney-born female indie rock singer-songwriter burst onto the scene in 2015, earned a nomination for ‘Best International Female Artist’ at the BRIT Awards in 2016 and released a collaborative album with Kurt Vile in 2017. A new solo album follows this November via Mom + Pop.