Free Range – Lost & Found | Album Review

Mick Music

In baseball, one of the most critical roles on any team is the utility player. If you find someone like that, you hold on to them like grim death. The best quality of the utility player is their versatility – they are plug-and-play athletes who can move to almost any given position at a moment’s notice. A name that instantly comes to mind is Ben Zobrist, whose contributions led to back-to-back World Series titles for the Kansas City Royals and Chicago Cubs. He is a player who is willing to give whatever is possible for the betterment of the team.

Sofia Jensen is one of those unique utility players in the Chicago indie community, but instead of a bat or glove, Jensen carries a wide array of musical instruments and crafts heartfelt indie rock under the name Free Range. It’s no exaggeration to say that Jensen has Swiss Army Knife-like versatility. Need someone to play guitar? How about someone who can sing backup vocals while also playing the harmonica? What about video recording your show at a historic concert hall? Jensen can do all of that and then some. So when the time comes for them to enter the spotlight on their sophomore record, Lost & Found, it should come as no surprise to hear that Jensen has their jack-of-all-trades skills on full display.

When I think of the Americana genre, I envision bright sunny days, driving solo on the freeway without a care in the world, and the flat plains of the Midwest. So when I listen to this specific type of record, I want the music to transport me, like when Happy Gilmore goes to his Happy Place. Lost & Found hits all the beats I look for in an Americana album: the weepy pedal steel, twangy strummed guitars, and melancholy songwriting are the recipe for a great listening experience. “Storm” is the poster child for this definition, even going so far as to sing about trains, coastlines, and car trips. I listen to the song and immediately feel like I’m road-tripping through the middle of Wisconsin or Iowa (this is a compliment, I swear). 

As a humongous Elliot Smith fan, Jensen strives for a similar level of intimacy in the lyrics, treating the songs as acoustic guitar confessionals, almost like a sonic diary. Listening to this collection of tracks, the subject matter gives me the impression that Jensen has a wise, shy, and reserved personality out in the real world. Displaying their signature hushed tone on the exquisite title track “Lost & Found,” Jensen sings, “Show me all your doubts / I tell you all of what I was singing about.” One track later, the emotionally complex “Chase” strikes down on a self-destructive person who’s alienating the ones closest to them. The songwriting feels honest and sincere, coming from someone who wants to find a place to belong.

Self-discovery is a prominent theme across Lost & Found as we hear someone in their early twenties trying to find their place in the world. On the tender guitar-plucked “Faith,” Jensen softly sings, “It’s not like I choose my fears / but there’s nothing worse than running from a mirror.” Who a person is at ten years old is different when they are twenty than at thirty and so on. That’s the beauty in life: finding the maturation of the years aged by growing into the person we are meant to be. Living up to your potential can be a struggle, and not everyone has the opportunity to accomplish this goal, but it feels to me like Jensen is meeting it head-on, and we are hearing a person grow up right in front of us.

At the record’s midpoint, the songs “Hardly” and “Concept” instantly stood out to me. Each song is fleshed out with the added power of the electric guitar and a full arrangement of the band with Jack Henry (Drums), Bailey Mizenberger (Bass), Andy Pk (Pedal Steel), and Tommy Read (Guitar). Jensen’s delivery still flows as smoothly as ever, even when the music is turned up a couple extra decibels. I think of artists like Squirrel Flower, Waxahatchee, or Rosali as trailblazers of this ethos, working toward the same true north that “Hardly” and “Concept” are pointed toward. Both are examples of the exciting spaces that Free Range could explore on future albums and are sure to explode to life in concert.

My favorite storytelling is the heartfelt tale of a love interest, “Conditions,” where the protagonist is unable to express their feelings: “You tell me to be honest / and that’s what I find the hardest.” The feelings of longing, infatuation, and self-doubt hit like a ton of bricks, especially for people coming of age. Jensen’s lyrics have an honesty to them that would lead me to believe this originated from a seasoned veteran artist well into their career. There’s a certain beauty within the pain of maturity; the biggest obstacle is knowing life will hurt but continuing to put yourself out there. Lost & Found is a deeply personal journey of self-discovery someone who is willing to take on countless risks, no matter the costs.

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David is a content mercenary based in Chicago. He's also a freelance writer specializing in music, movies, and culture. His hidden talents are his mid-range jump shot and the ability to always be able to tell when someone is uncomfortable at a party. You can find him scrolling away on Instagram @davidmwill89, Twitter @Cobretti24, or Medium @davidmwms.

Bill Orcutt – How to Rescue Things | Album Review

Palilalia

Over a decade after the dissolution of his legendary noise trio Harry Pussy, Bill Orcutt re-emerged as a dark horse contender for preeminent interpreter of traditional American music. Armed with little more than recording equipment and his trusty four-stringed guitars, Orcutt breathed new life into old songs, filtering rumbling blues through the atonal improvisations of Derek Bailey. These albums often expanded into meta-commentary on the idea of the “American” song; their tracklists would mix spirituals, Disney songs, Tin Pan Alley, and more, all unified by how Orcutt would obliterate the basic structure of his selections. 

Orcutt’s self-titled 2017 release opens with a rendition of Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman.” In the 50s and 60s, Coleman reframed the American music of his own time, leading a groundbreaking jazz quartet with no piano, untethering the music from a tonal center. He’s a clear forebear for a musician like Orcutt, whose interpretations are even further ungrounded from their source material. But Coleman notably rejected playing standards from the outset of his career, opting to compose all the tunes on his records at a time when even his most talented peers were putting their spins on Rodgers and Hammerstein. Coleman’s brilliance yielded exactly one elevation into “standard” territory of his own: the aforementioned “Lonely Woman.”

How to Rescue Things, released late last year, is Orcutt’s third solo album of originals in as many years. It’s also the most melodic music of his career, wedding his searing leads to dulcet strings pilfered from an RCA easy-listening collection. These sweeping arrangements have historical precedent in jazz, too: think Charlie Parker with Strings or maybe Lady in Satin. But those albums used strings as accompaniments, extra tonality, and shorthand for feelings already being evoked by the soloist. Orcutt is operating from inside these arrangements even as he often soars above them. His improvisatory approach has the effect of foregrounding the chord changes under him; it’s as if he is accompanying them.

On “Old Hamlet,” for instance, Orcutt slowly builds up to a wail over plucked harp, as if his guitar were deep in existential thought. Suddenly he recedes, quietly but insistently strumming each note several times, blending his instrument’s timbre with the background, almost pleading. Several tracks later, the weeping orchestra of “Requiem in Dust” is too loud to be drowned out, so Orcutt wages war from within, building to a long stretch of repetition wherein he completely abandons the harmonic structure in a moment akin to running up a down escalator. 

These string backing tracks on their own conjure up the romanticism of a bygone era: New York City in the fall, a stiff drink in a smoky bar. Orcutt’s additions disrupt the nostalgia but don’t necessarily refute it. Rather, it begs the question, “What exactly are we remembering?” Were these the true experiences of our friends, of our parents, of their parents? Or was it simply a dream sold to them by television programs and glossy magazine ads? Is the American Dream crumbling before our very eyes? Even the idea that one could once live out the Horatio Alger myth grows increasingly shambolic. The building is collapsing, the chandelier in the lobby is about to give way. Perhaps taking a sledgehammer to the foundation is the wisest course.

But listening to the closer “The Wild Psalms” as it descends into a noisy squall over a string sequence fit for Hollywood credits, one gets the sense that Orcutt finds the swaying chandelier in the decrepit old structure oddly beautiful. Perhaps How to Rescue Things is a double entendre: a way to improve upon the schmaltzy cast-off recordings from days of yore, sure, but also a model for finding beauty in a world as it disintegrates. Orcutt has written a fine set of swan songs for the country amidst its death march, and in doing so, he may finally have made his own entry into the American canon.

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Jason Sloan is a guy from Brooklyn by way of Long Island. You can find him on Twitter, Bluesky, and Tributary.

Don't Really Mind These Miles: An Interview with Marble Teeth

For most of my life, I’ve been chasing the high of listening to The Replacements for the first time. It happened back in seventh grade. I was a performative hater of anything modern, and I had a problem: I couldn’t deny that I was starting to enjoy Green Day. Fearing that I might be on the verge of betraying my “born in the wrong generation” aesthetic, I Googled “Old bands that sound like Green Day,” hoping to find a group from before I existed that could scratch the same itch. Through this search, I found “Bastards of Young,” which led me to Tim, which led me to Let it Be, which led me to everything else, and before I knew it, I had developed a burning love for the band that outlived (and helped guide me out of) the pretentious phase which had led me to them in the first place. It totally changed the way I consumed and thought about music. I just had never been into a band like that. I didn’t know there could be a band like that. 

Though I’ve never had that exact feeling again (and likely never will), there are a few bands that have gotten me pretty close. Cloud Nothings come to mind as one example, a band that grabbed me at first listen and totally changed my understanding of the ways melody and fuzz can coexist. Prefab Sprout, who pushed pop songwriting in directions I had never considered, is another. Most recently, I’ve become obsessed with Marble Teeth, the solo project of Decatur, Illinois-based singer-songwriter Caleb Jefson.

I came across Marble Teeth last August when they opened for Retirement Party at Beat Kitchen. Prior to the show I’d never heard of them, but they very quickly had me hooked. Most of what they played that night came from their most recent release, top 10 times i’ve cried, a record that at different points finds itself living in the worlds of alt-country, indie folk, and straight-up Americana. It wasn’t necessarily a sound that I expected to hear at an emo show, but I couldn’t deny that it worked.

Beyond the music, I was fascinated by Caleb as an artist. His merch spread was like nothing I’d ever seen; sitting next to a table with CDs and zines was a portable clothing rack with about 20 Marble Teeth shirts, no two of which were exactly alike. Each one that I flipped through had a new design or was pressed into a different brand/color of shirt, meaning that they had each been individually crafted rather than ordered in bulk from a distributor, truly DIY. 

When I got home and looked more into Marble Teeth, I discovered that this is just how Caleb does things. He handles everything on his records: the playing, the recording, the mixing, the album covers. Beyond the unique shirts, he seems to be constantly learning new crafts and applying these skills to his merch; at different times over the past few months, he’s offered both custom embroidered hats and Marble Teeth branded gloves, all homemade. When he worked with Klepto Phase to put out a vinyl pressing of top 10 times i’ve cried last fall, each record was accompanied by an exquisitely designed lyric zine. He’s an artist in the truest sense of the word. 

As I dug into Marble Teeth’s back catalog, two records I found myself coming back to a lot were Cars and Park, released in 2018 and 2020, respectively. Where top 10 times is clearly influenced by older folk and country music, Cars and Park take their approach more from contemporary bedroom pop/singer-songwriter-tinged emo artists like Slaughter Beach, Dog and Trace Mountains. They’re raw and emotional records with a sound that’s incredibly in my wheelhouse. It was the most I’d been obsessed with an artist since finding Tim; there were whole weeks where those two records were all that I listened to.

A few months after first hearing Marble Teeth at Beat Kitchen, I was lucky enough to meet Caleb at a house show in Chicago where he mentioned that a vinyl pressing of Cars and Park was in the works: one record that would have Cars on one side and Park on the other. This was right around when I was playing both non-stop, so I was ecstatic. That vinyl is now pressed, ready to ship, and up for sale directly through Marble Teeth’s own website. I sat down with Caleb to discuss his creative process, finally getting these records out on vinyl, and how he feels about them five to seven years after their release. Here is that conversation.   

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

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SWIM: To get started, I was curious how you guys came to this decision to put Cars and Park out on vinyl at this point, with their release having been quite a few years in the past.

CALEB: I got the opportunity through a program at the local college here where they were doing a small pressing of something, like only a hundred of them. Honestly, these have been a long time in the making. So, top 10 times i’ve cried was being recorded but not even planned to be put out yet. Neither of those albums [Cars or Park] really had much of a physical release. I did some tapes that were split albums where I had Cars on one side and Park on the other, but it’s been a couple of years. I just thought, given only a hundred, those are old enough that I'm not gonna be pushing them so hard. The people who want them will definitely want them because Cars and Park have their fan base. And then the new stuff has picked up people, but yeah, the day-one fans love those, I think, I hope.

SWIM: So I know you just said you put out some tapes of those two, but in general, with your stuff for physical releases, are you doing just like CDs when you go on a run? Is that more your normal thing? 

CALEB: I've done that in the past where, yeah, I'll just hand-burn CDs. Physical copies are definitely something I've not put a ton of money into. When it comes to band operations and stuff, it really is just me. I have a live band that I play with, but I play all the instruments on the records and do all the recording and writing. So when it comes to financial backing for things, it's literally just me paying for it out of pocket. In the past, I've done the cheapest way possible, generally homemade stuff. I splurged for a couple of runs of tapes before a big tour or something just to have something else that looks nice.

SWIM: Nice. When it comes to vinyl, are you personally a collector or fan?

CALEB: Yeah, yeah, I like vinyl.

SWIM: Do you have any particular records in your collection that are your favorites or mean something to you?

CALEB: My buddy Jacob gave me a copy of Nashville Skyline by Bob Dylan a couple of years ago, and that kind of started it. He was like, ‘This is for your Bob Dylan collection,’ and I only had two of his before that. Honestly, I was a big fan, but I only had a couple that I had found, and then I was like, huh, I didn't even realize I had a collection. After that, I kind of started buying a ton. So that one's special because it kind of sparked that, “All right, I'm just going to buy all these up,” I guess. I'm a huge Dylan head, and he just has so many albums. It's fun to try out the ones I've never listened to before. Just put it on the record rather than trying to get through it on streaming. Sometimes it's way easier to skip around and stuff.

SWIM: Right, yeah. I know I saw you posted your Bob Dylan spread. It was the size of a quilt.

CALEB: Yeah, I was inspired by some other dude who had me beat by a couple, I think, but just like had them all laid out on the floor of the rug.

SWIM: That's sick. So, back to Cars and Park and putting them out again in your live show. Do you still play many of the songs from these records? Or do you mostly play stuff from top 10?

CALEB: Up until very recently, there were still Cars and Park on the set list. Probably “Funk Track” off Cars was really the only one getting played, and then some Park songs, like “The Park” and “The Neighbor.” Actually, “Quick Stop” off Park, we still do play. If I'm playing a solo set, I have a lot more (from them) I can pull from than the band. With the band, it's kind of just the couple that we've practiced because I record all the parts, and then I’m teaching them to other people and letting them kind of put their flair on it. I've had a couple different lineups of the band. The second to most recent lineup we've had was still playing Cars and Park stuff, but now I think we're just doing “Quick Stop.”

SWIM: As part of this process, when you had to listen back to Cars and Park, was there anything that surprised you about either release? I don't know how often you were thinking about them beyond playing the songs before this, but going back and listening to the recording, is there anything that stood out to you where you were like, ‘I didn't think much of this at the time, but this is something?’

CALEB: Before getting them back, actually, not really, because I just kind of sent all the stuff off. But once I got the test pressings and listened to those, it made the mix really pop. It definitely sounds way better than just listening on a streamer because it was mastered by somebody as well. I didn't originally—Cars was mastered, but Park was exported straight from GarageBand onto the internet, essentially…it's quieter than most stuff on Spotify, so hearing it on the record just makes it sound nice and big. I still have a soft spot for those songs, for sure. It just maybe took me back in time a little bit.

SWIM: I know both records have very similar cover aesthetics, and you said in the past you put them out with the tape, like one on one side, one on the other. When you made Cars, did you have the idea, like, ‘I'm going to make Park, and it's going to be kind of a sister record?’ Or were these songs you had left over, or did it come together over time as being a shared existence?

CALEB: I definitely had the album cover for Cars even before there was much of an album written. There was just this sign by my house that I drove by every day, and I was like, ‘I want to make that an album cover.’ And then the Park sign is just right down the street, and I had already put out Cars before I noticed how good the other one was. I was like, oh my gosh, perfect follow-up–four letters on literally the same road in my town. Sadly, the Cars sign has since been torn down. But the Park one is still standing. I definitely didn't plan to make a follow-up, but thematically, I think it kind of is a follow-up or almost a part two. A before and after.

SWIM: Yeah, because even across the two, I know you have “Runners World” (on Cars) and then “Runners World 2” (on Park), which is a different take on a similar riff. Did you write two versions of that song, or did you get to one later?

CALEB: The original “Runners World” on Cars was just the song, that was the only song I had. Then one time, I was practicing up a live band when I really only had Cars and a couple of Park songs written. We were just trying to figure out what we could do because I had 13 songs back then, essentially. So (we were) figuring out which ones we could do, and I was playing the “Runners World” riff, and Paul, the drummer, started drumming. I had this poem that I had just written up, and I was like, whoa, this kind of sets over it. So that just kind of turned into the sequel. Definitely wasn't planned originally to do that, but that might have been the first example of it… But, well, even on some original Bandcamp stuff—I have two different versions of a song called “High School Football Championship,” that's also on Cars. But that's something I really like in other artists that I enjoy: finding a song that they've done different versions of or different live takes of it.

SWIM: Because I think I saw on one of the Extra Volumes (on Bandcamp), you have one of the songs that ended up making it on top 10 as well. I'm forgetting which one it is now.

CALEB: Oh, yeah, yeah, “the gun.”

SWIM: Yeah yeah yeah.

CALEB: It's an extended version of an Extras song. It's just verse one on Extras, and I think I honestly had had a few verses, it just wasn't— I probably had tweaked the lyrics since then and didn't have the full band vision of it in my head, so I didn't want to milk it. With the Extras I was trying to do short stuff, and it was just recording in a couple of days’ time.

SWIM: Do you try to do much interpolation of other people's stuff? I was listening to Marble Teeth, the self-titled one, and you have that song, “John Jackson.” Is that like a Jack Johnson riff, kind of off “Banana Pancakes?”

CALEB: Yeah, yeah, just playing those chords, they remind me of “Banana Pancakes” and “Upside Down,” but there's definitely the major seven or whatever chord that is…the way the chord sounded made me think about Jack Johnson, for sure. So then, yeah, I just switched it around.

SWIM: Sick. And then there’s one thing I've been thinking about, too, because I listened to Cars and Park a lot before this, and before that, I'd been listening to a lot of top 10 times, and it's very different. The approach on top 10 times feels a lot more rootsy, and I know there are many years in between the records, but I was curious about the change in sound between Cars and Park to top 10 times. Is it that you always wanted to make something that sounds like top 10 times, but you didn't have the equipment, or you were getting around to that songwriting? Is it just your taste has changed over time and this is reflective of what you're listening to now?

CALEB: Yeah, probably a little bit of all of those. I had been in pop-punk-type bands before, so I made louder rock songs. Definitely with Cars or Self-titled at least, because those were the first things I recorded at home. I was definitely going for more of a bedroom pop, softer sound, and since then, I've gotten way more into country and roots and folk. Maybe not folk, but country was something I would actively say that I disliked in high school and younger, but I've definitely come around on it in my 20s just listening to Dylan and Neil Young. Honestly, the American Anthology of Folk Music, this compilation by this dude, Harry Smith, that the Smithsonian put out, just lots of good old-timey tunes on there. That's what I was, post-COVID, listening to a lot more, stuff like that, so I don't know if I would have tried to make something that sounded like that back then, but I definitely was going for quieter at the beginning.

SWIM: For sure, it reminds me a little, the Cars and Parks stuff, of Slaughter Beach Dog.

CALEB: That's definitely 100% what I was listening to. I mean, Motorcycle.jpg and Birdie coming out pretty quickly, one after another, changed my music taste completely. I speak for a lot of people in the scene, probably when I say that, but I think those were a shift for people my age getting into a lot more Americana-type sounds and slide guitar.

SWIM: I was always curious about it because I found out about you over the last year. I first saw you when you opened for Retirement Party with OK Cool, and it seems like whenever I'm on Instagram and I click on an emo or pop-punky band, I see that you often follow them, but then when I see you post music you're listening to, I feel like it's more recently folk stuff or like, Poco-style rock. 

CALEB: Yeah, I'm definitely not listening to much emo these days, to be honest. I mean, there's definitely stuff from my youth that has a nostalgia factor, but I'm not, like, seeking out new stuff in that vein—although the new Hotline TNT album kind of threw me back into the rock and roll world a bit. Yeah, like I was saying, I've been going back in time, just further back, trying to… just the story songs and the banjo and mandolin, those instruments have been really fascinating to me recently. They just sound good. Less abrasive to my ears, too, honestly. I was just getting headaches from listening to a lot of music in the car all the time.

SWIM: So, did you record Cars, Park, and top 10 all at home kind of on the same type of setup, or did you also have an equipment change or upgrade to a different system? 

CALEB: Probably the closest (in recording method) would have been Park and top 10. Cars I actually recorded on an iPad on GarageBand.

SWIM: That's wild.

CALEB: Yeah, oh man. Yeah. I'm just thinking back on it as a mess of cables and converters and stuff. I have recorded a couple of projects that way through the iPad, Self-titled, and then some other projects for other friends. I felt like I was kind of getting good at that, and I liked GarageBand a lot, so then I bought a Macbook, and Park was the first thing I recorded on it, so I was figuring things out. That's why I feel like those two sound kind of different, the vocal and the guitar sounds, at least, just because I was plugging directly in through an interface instead of through an iPad.

SWIM: I know Cars has way more keys and synth than Park, definitely (more) than top 10. Is that just because when you're recording into an iPad directly using some of those direct MIDI software instruments?

CALEB: Honestly, all of those are a... I don't think I have any... there's a drum and a...sorry, I'm so spacey. No, all of those are real keyboards, a little Casio I've got. I've only used a GarageBand drum machine one time on “Lonerisnt” the single. But it was also the last thing I... that was truly the last thing I recorded on the iPad right after Cars. I recorded a single, got the MacBook, and started doing stuff on there. So there's Park, and then Extra was kind of a little more experimenting with the laptop. 8 More was, like, I'm kind of locking it, have to make it sound a little more hi-fi on the laptop, and then top 10 was like, alright, let's EQ this shit.

SWIM: Yeah, because on top 10 you have way more filtering and stuff on the vocals, and it feels like more an artistic choice in the mix than just making it legible.

CALEB: I definitely just spent a lot more time on this one, that's for sure. I mean, when you're doing it yourself especially, it's like every project you do is pretty much a huge learning experience. It's like you work on it, and then you put it out, and then you listen to it, and you're like, ‘I like this, I don't like this, let's try again, use all these new tricks that I just figured out.’ Every song you finish, you're like, wow, I wish I could have done that thing I figured out on every other song I've ever made, but let's keep it going.

SWIM: For sure. So you put out the vinyl of top 10, and now you’ve got the Cars and Park one, does it make you think your next album, you might want to do vinyl at release? Or is it the sort of thing where if the opportunity comes again like this, you would, but otherwise it's not really top of mind?

CALEB: Yeah, I'm so bad at planning ahead.

SWIM: Sure.

CALEB: If I could find somewhere that was really interested in doing that…because I haven't even really started on anything post-top 10. I have songs, but recording-wise, there’s nothing finished. So maybe I should start planning ahead and getting everything together. My problem is once it's done, I'm not waiting on anybody to mix it or anything, so I'm just ‘I want to get this out ASAP,’ and I'd rather promote something that's already out than try and sell people a record (that will) come out in three months.

SWIM: Definitely. On the top 10 release, you did those drawings for the tracklist on the back. Do you like that part of this kind of (physical) production where you get new places where you can do some sort of artistic output related to the old project?

CALEB: Oh, yeah, I mean, it being kind of a one-man operation in that way, I really just get to throw every hobby and craft I encounter at this and try and incorporate it in some way. There's been a couple of pieces I've commissioned out, but pretty much from the beginning, everything I've put out I've made to some extent, and I really like figuring stuff out and getting my own style. It's pretty amateurish, you could say, from recording to drawing or the production side of things, but I think there's a charm that's kind of realistic when you're not trying to curate something to the point where you’re getting the best of the best. This is just my life's work, essentially. I don't have it packaged up underneath.

SWIM: Yeah, no, I get that. So that was the main stuff I had to ask you. I have two really specific questions about lyrics from Park that I've just been curious about, if that's cool.

CALEB: Sure.

SWIM: So I always thought about this line on “The Monkeys” where you say, “We're dancing in the dark, just like that singer you like,” which I think is a sick line. I was always curious if there was someone in your life who liked Bruce Springsteen and you didn't. I mean, it's just a cool way to say that because I feel like a lot of people have dropped Springsteen's name in a song on purpose, and you kind of, whether intentionally or not, avoided it in that way. I always thought it was kind of sick.

CALEB: That's funny. I've gotten that a couple of times, but it is not about Bruce Springsteen.

SWIM: Oh, really?

CALEB: It's about dancing in the literal darkness, like a different singer. I'll just keep it unnamed, but I do like that. I know that's just one of those things about writing lyrics where they totally take on a life of their own, and also, maybe I'm just dumb for not realizing that that's exactly like Bruce Springsteen. So many things where it's like, yeah, I almost don't want to say it because I don't want to change everyone's perception of it. It's whoever you think it is, but it's cool because, yeah, you are not the first person to say that.

SWIM: That's fascinating. And then the other one I was always curious about was in part of the song “The Park,” you talk about not being “allowed to watch this program as a kid” and not getting someone's references. I was curious if there's any specific instance behind that or if it's just something you've run up against when it comes to media.

CALEB: That one I can specify. It was definitely Spongebob. That was my inspiration behind that one. Spongebob or Friends, maybe those are the two that I really imagine in my head when I'm thinking of that. But that one I definitely leave up to interpretation as well. I'd be interested to hear what shows other people were not allowed to watch.

SWIM: Sure. It reminds me of when I was in kindergarten. For some reason, some kids in my kindergarten class were allowed to watch Boy Meets World, but I wasn't. And they would have long debates about Boy Meets World stuff, and I just had to sit there.

CALEB: Yeah, everyone's talking about it, and you're like, hmm. Or just…you're telling them a story, and they're like, oh, that’s like the episode of this thing, and you're like, yeah, I understand. Can I finish my story, please?

SWIM: Yeah, for sure. Sick, that was all I had to ask. Is there anything you would want to add about the vinyl release or the process around it?

CALEB: I don't know. I'm excited to do it. This was supposed to be the first vinyl that I got, but it's kind of just been a long process for various reasons. I'm bad at sending emails and stuff. And I got lucky with Klepto Phase reaching out about top 10. Like I said, these were slated to get produced when top 10 wasn't really finalized or anything yet. I had most of those songs written and somewhat recorded. I'm just excited to get them. It's sweet that people—I mean, it's sweet that you listened to them a ton and were thinking about this, and you were interested enough to want to write about it. Because they definitely sound—I mean, listening back to them, they sound young, but that's just because it's me. It's, like, I love that guy, but he's also me four years ago. So I kind of hate him a little bit, but... 

Yeah, it's sweet that people like those albums, and (those were) the basis of this project. It’s what I was touring on for the majority of when I was getting out there. So it's kind of cool that people still like them, and I appreciate them sticking with me on the new stuff. I mean, I look at the streams, and every album kind of has more than the last, so it feels good as an artist to feel like you're picking up steam and not like, “Oh, you guys only like this old one, now I have to try and recreate that magic or just, like, move on and lose you all.”

The combined vinyl pressing of Cars and Park is available now directly through Marble Teeth’s website.

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Josh Ejnes is a writer and musician living in Chicago. You can keep up with his writing on music and sports on Twitter and listen to his band Cutaway Car here.

more eaze and claire rousay – no floor | Album Review

Thrill Jockey

In the backrooms of my memory, redwoods and oceans blur into deep snow and summits, each shining like a precious stone. I guard these collections of memory like a sullen dragon, unwilling to lose even a moment in these sacred landscapes. One of my favorite places is central California’s Mono Lake region. The sparseness of its sweeping high desert plains, dotted with the few trees brave enough to weather its arid seasons, brought me to tears the first time I experienced it as a child. There is power there, barely concealed in the violent crags and glacial scars, yet there is softness in the surrender of the earth to its own weaponry. I am enchanted by tide pools – each a miniature universe, easily disrupted by the swipe of a careless hand. The gentle starfish and hurried hermit crabs bear no burdens, suffer no cares, and allow the whims of the tides to carry them to the next microcosm that fate deems they ought to inhabit. As a young girl, I would ponder the little creatures as they seemed to regard me with a similarly curious gaze, humming to myself as the icy waters of the Pacific lapped at my rosy feet.

I sense the same reverence for place in more eaze and claire rousay’s brilliant new release, no floor. Through the five tracks of their collaborative EP, there runs a feeling of deep, almost holy, nostalgia for rural America. Having grown up rurally myself, I have an appreciation for the odd beauty that comes with such a youth – the dilapidated grocery stores in lonely strip malls, scattered livestock farms, sprawling meadows, and brilliantly starry night skies. There is a charm to it that is distinctly American and unique to each region of the country. As more eaze (mari maurice) and claire rousay hail from Texas and Canada, respectively (both equally barren places), there is a specific feeling to this LP - not like country music, no. It is the feel of vast plains of emptiness, waving fields of golden grass, and shimmering heat mirages on roads that lay straight for miles. It is the incomprehensible loneliness of living twenty, thirty, or forty miles from the next town and experiencing the paradox of both isolation and overwhelm. It is the great grief of loving a place that you know you have to leave – unwillingly divorcing a part of your very being. That is the feeling of no floor.

maurice and rousay have already made a name for themselves both individually and collaboratively as producers and composers, each with an impressive (if not daunting) body of work. While their previous output proves their talent in the electronic, ambient, and hyperpop genres, no floor sees the two powerhouses working together in an entirely new way. According to the composers, no floor is an ode to a specific set of third places like bars where they spent time together over the course of their youth. The duo humorously refers to them as “pillars of our debauchery.” Third places are socially necessary and would include anywhere that people can foster a sense of community outside of the home (the first place) and work (the second place). They are a tragically diminishing commodity for today’s young people as the world rushes towards a seemingly inevitable digital existence. I have favorite third places - the library, concert venues, museums - and I cherish making memories in them with people I care about. An entire album dedicated to the places and evenings whiled away by rousay and maurice is a beautiful, tender tribute to youth.

Photo by Katherine Squier

Each track on no floor is a living, vibrant collage of whimsical created sounds, supported by rousay’s delicately sparse guitar work and maurice’s pedal steel. The use of shimmering, warm strings throughout this LP captured my heart immediately, as I have a soft spot for them in my own work and find that they lend incomparable emotion. The opening piece on no floor is called “hopfields,” and the locale in question is an elegant brasserie in Austin. The track opens with a plucked guitar, joined by swells of pedal steel and crackling static in the background. My ears feel as though they are cocooned in angora as the music relaxes and evolves over the course of eight gentle minutes. One can easily picture soft conversation over glittering cocktails as humming synth and an achingly beautiful string line paint a warm, blurry picture. In the background, one hears something akin to a train whistle, and I imagine that I can feel the rumbling of steel wheels as I lean back in my chair and close my eyes.

The third track on this release is even more specific than the first, zooming all the way in to depict “the applebees outside kalamazoo, michigan.” Instead of feeling safe and welcoming like “hopfields,” “applebees” has a distinctly eerie, almost sinister, aura. Though the track opens in a warm and inviting way, it quickly transforms into something entirely different: odd glitches and low, brooding strings create a feeling of unease. The composers mention that they stopped at this particular Applebee's during a tour, and their unfamiliarity with the area comes through the piece as sliding pitches that lead to uncomfortable, though brief, dissonances unsettled me and gave me the unnerving sense of being watched. “applebees” could very easily soundtrack an A24 thriller – beauty juxtaposed against something deeply, viscerally off. Though the piece is strange and otherworldly, I am drawn to it for those very reasons. It is compelling and stands out in the tracklist like a desolate truck stop in the middle of the night-time desert, haunted and glowing fluorescent.

“kinda tropical” is less specific in title, though just as exact in sound. The second track on the album (and also my favorite) is littered with wonderfully charming glitches that skip and stutter throughout. This cacophony of synths is supported by tenuous strings that fade in and out, sometimes violently swelling to a fever pitch before disappearing like snowflakes on skin. This track sounds like how my favorite landscapes feel - sparse, vast, and gorgeously compelling. Though this is the most minimalistic work on no floor, it is nonetheless stunningly evocative. As a devotee of the American minimalist genre and its composers, I love works that contain multitudes of emotion and storytelling through repeated motifs, sounds, and rhythmic textures. “kinda tropical” proves how effective this style of composition can be: less is more here.

With the release of no floor, more eaze and claire rousay have once again surpassed their own standards and broken their own molds. This LP is magical and mysterious, a pristine sketchbook of connection during the tumult of youth. It is a glorious and eccentric tribute to the otherworldly element of rural living and the transformative power that third places hold. In the past, I have found collaborative releases to come across as forced, an arranged marriage of sorts, but no floor proves that artistic union can be found between artists – and that it is an incredible thing when done well. 

Britta Joseph is a musician and artist who, when she isn’t listening to records or deep-diving emo archives on the internet, enjoys writing poetry, reading existential literature, and a good iced matcha. You can find her on Instagram @brittajoes.

Pictoria Vark – Nothing Sticks | Album Review

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I keep forgetting my headphones. The snow finally melted here in DC, so I’ve been going on lots of walks, but I keep forgetting my earbuds in my other jacket or purse. I always notice when I’m halfway down the block, and I always decide it’s not worth it to turn back. That means I’ve been going on quiet walks lately. These walks are usually in the evening, at a time when I watch the streetlights turn on while I’m still far from home. I love these walks. The sidewalk is just uneven enough that I can’t look at my phone without risk of tripping, so I don’t. It’s one of the only times of day I feel truly lost in the sounds of my street, neighborhood, and city. I’m aware of every song playing in every bar I pass, what time the birds stop singing, and that one annoying car alarm. I usually spend these walks lost in thought, thinking about last year, the future, and writing this review. Pictoria Vark seems to be on the same walk with me.

Pictoria Vark’s sophomore album, Nothing Sticks, takes Victoria Park’s ongoing, contemplative self-awareness up a notch as she explores both the uplifting and grueling sides of such ruminations. It’s been almost three years since the Chicago-based artist released her acclaimed debut album, The Parts I Dread. Much like her new record, Park’s debut was similarly introspective, weighing her loneliness, her anxieties about the past, and her focus on making music. However, due to the passage of time and her ascendancy as an indie rock darling, Park’s introspection has expanded, widening to look at her life on the other side of that previous worry. Written over Park’s pulsing heartbeat bassline, Nothing Sticks is a pensive indie rock collection that invites listeners to reconcile with, well, how nothing sticks.

The album begins with a dirge as a rolling drumbeat melds with Park’s bass tone through the introduction of “Sara.” It’s a somber melody that turns from concrete to atmospheric and back again over and over, with each clash scaling further and further up. Park’s bass leads the charge as a trumpet overpowers the drum’s steady rhythm. The song falls back, and a guitar croons. It surges again, blanketing her vocals in a balanced cacophony. Park was inspired by environmental sounds and describes this weaving brass encroachment as reminiscent of “a high school marching band in the distance.” 

After establishing the stakes with this introduction, Park rewinds with “No One Left,” a song where shuffling reversed audio is balanced with a guitar digging deeper and deeper as Park sings a repeated admittance, “I think I could love you.” From there, “San Diego” captures her biggest sound yet, thanks to the use of a string section, which has a bright and romantic effect. This elevation leads to “I Sing What I See,” Park’s first song on the album contending with her experiences performing. Much like lights on stage or the roar of a crowd, the song engulfs her.

The song I have been singing the most under my breath is “I Pushed It Down,” which begins with a bare beat before adding a guitar strum for the chorus. A symphony suddenly sparks around the minimalist sound, and a violin becomes a second voice, complementing Park’s as it ducks and dives around her words. The song has a starry quality that winks and waves as Park sings the melancholy refrain, “I pushed it down.”

“Make Me A Sword” sits at the heart of the album. Heart meaning that it’s the center of the project, the most vulnerable, and the place the titular sword is likely aiming towards. In the song, Park confronts both herself and her music career head-on, contending with the relationship she has with her coping mechanisms and her onstage presence. Lyrics paint Park in different roles: a Sisyphean character, a court jester, and even a knight as she grapples with understanding her coping mechanisms and letting them go. Lyrics like “Make me a sword to point against me, I’ll be your shield if it protects me” illustrate this two-fold dynamic over a rhythm that would feel familiar coming out of a basement at a house party. It's a song that dances with multicolor lights and buzzes with warmth.

“Make Me A Sword” fades, and the distorted “Lucky Superstar” begins. This is the album’s loudest track, with a fuzzy and almost haunting feeling as Park repeats “big, blue heart” over an ever-crashing, scratchy crescendo. “Where It Began” follows on an opposite note, delivered with a kind of stripped-down melancholia. It builds like the pressure behind your eyes right before you cry. The album as a whole starts to slow before “We’re Musicians.” In the final track of the album, Park’s bassline bops to a beachy tune, throwing out defeating lyrics like “thank God for good days and bad luck” or “your eyes don’t crease when you smile at me” before drowning the words in total shred.

When describing this album, Park explained, “Everything we want to last, whether it’s a relationship, a moment, a career, or a way of life, will come to an inevitable end.” And like she suggests, this album has to end too, so, with the sound of endlessly crashing waves, it does. 

Nothing Sticks isn’t reassuring, but it’s not dooming either. It's a normal statement that comes from years of consideration and, therefore, is perfect for applying meaning and reflection. The point of this album isn't to get lost in these contemplations but rather to accept the need to let them go. So I am going to keep going on my long walks, and I’ll still be meditative sometimes or whatever, but maybe next time I’ll remember my headphones.

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Caro Alt (she/her) is from New Orleans, Louisiana, and if she could be anyone in The Simpsons, she would be Milhouse.