Origami Angel – The Brightest Days | Mixtape Review

/

Counter Intuitive Records

There is something borderline poetic about listening to “The Brightest Days,” the title track of Origami Angel’s new mixtape, while you’re looking at a sky full of haze due to sweeping wildfires and simultaneously doom scrolling on the hellscape that is Twitter dot com. I, too, am asking where my sunny feeling is now that the sense of the world ending is so strong that it feels like I’m wearing concrete shoes and was just thrown into the bay. The soft ukulele and group vocals singing this lovely little melody quickly turn into a rug pulled out from beneath your feet as Pat Doherty’s drums come in like a punch to the face and the crunchy guitars take the forefront of the song. The backing vocals throughout this entire mixtape, especially this first song, are reminiscent of The Beach Boys. These swooning, summery vocals paired with the gritty guitar, the halftime breakdown at the end of this 2:27 track (a perfect amount of time, I am always saying that songs should be 30 seconds shorter), and the melodic guitar riff make for an absolute banger introduction to this mixtape that’s full of twists and turns. Throughout this release, you never know what you’ll get with the next track, and I think that was exactly what Origami Angel were betting on. The outro slips into the familiar ukulele, and the ghost of the guitar feedback leads you into the next song, creating a wonderful little bookend of sound that leaves the listener still reeling just a bit and excited to figure out what’s coming next.

Did I mention Beach Boys backing vocals? Yeah, welcome to “Thank You, New Jersey,” the first single from The Brightest Days and a song I take very personally as a New Jersey native. I’ll take a note from the Immortal Bard and say that brevity is the soul of wit, considering most of the community has already listened. It's here where the band really establishes the theme of surfy vocals, this time paired with crunchy, layered guitars... and that little waltzy bridge doesn’t hurt either. As a lead single, this was a fun and clever introduction to this mixtape that had me stoked to see what was coming next – Pat Doherty absolutely crushing the first 45 seconds of this song was truly what sucked me in here, not that the lyrical content wasn’t just absolutely up my alley. If there’s one thing New Jerseyans love more than people leaving them the hell alone, it’s also being at the center of attention. We are truly an onion of a people: full of layers. These D.C. natives genuinely seem to understand us. Another track clocking in under 2:40, Origami Angel is receiving a large ‘Your welcome’ from me on behalf of the Garden State.

Do I imagine “Picture Frame” as a song playing during the opening scene of some coming-of-age movie or TV show? Yeah, and I promise that’s a compliment. That guitar riff that starts off the song is head-bobbing, catchy, and a LITTLE Blink-182 if you squint. It leads directly into a high-energy chorus that I know will have people moving and grooving at the next Gami show, hopefully becoming a new staple of their setlist. The quick vocal lines in the next verse are a great addition to the song as the band continues to switch things up, never letting a moment go stale. Not only do no two songs sound the same, no two parts of a song sound too similar. The band never uses one idea enough times for it to get monotonous or boring. Once they have your attention, they don’t let it go.

As a Trekkie, “Kobayashi Maru (My Very Own)” was on my radar the moment I read the title. To give some context for those unaware, the Kobayashi Maru is a training exercise in the Starfleet Academy – a test to show recruits and trainees that sometimes you simply cannot win despite your best efforts, greatest strengths, and high intellects. I love the symbolism used here, not just on a nerd level, but it is an excellent metaphor for that consistent feeling of failure and the resignation that sometimes you just won’t be able to win. I’m absolutely digging the ska-adjacent guitar strokes in the second verse; this song is probably giving the most Motion City Soundtrack energy out of all of them for me. The instrumental chunk that takes up the last 40 seconds of the song is stank-face-worthy (affectionate) and has the song ending with more energy than it even began with, which makes it a perfect transition into the next track.

“Second Best Friend” is the second-longest song on the mixtape, but it sure doesn’t feel that way. Origami Angel has a way of bringing out some of the most ear-pleasing guitar riffs right at the start of a song and still managing to build and grow throughout. The hard-hitting drums and guitar lick quickly give way to dreamy vocals, soft, reverberating backup vocals, and acoustic guitars for just a moment–long enough that when the drums come back, it almost takes you off guard. They’re doing a great job at switching up dynamics all throughout this mixtape while still sounding definitively Origami Angel. I adore the synth in this song and how Ryland managed to create a great balance between guitar riffs and keys here, giving both the chance to round out the track without being overwhelming. This might be my favorite song of the mixtape given the dynamics – the lyrics, the stops and starts, and the varying instruments being brought to the forefront throughout the song. It sounds like Drew Portalatin really spread his engineering and production wings on this one, and it paid off. The entire mixtape is excellently produced, but this song in particular solidified that it was something special for me.

I love a transitional song, precisely what the less than a minute-and-a-half, ukulele-driven “Looking Out” provides. It allows the audience to catch their breath after listening to five high-energy back-to-back bangers before moving along. It’s a sweet little song too, with kind lyrics and ocean waves in the background. It throws you a little off your guard so that when the guitar feedback starts in the next song and that drum-heavy, gritty guitar intro to “My PG County Summer” comes in, you are wide awake, alert, and ready.

The second single, “My PG County Summer,” has received its love and praise from the public already, but I would be remiss not to mention it here given its relevance and the fact that it’s. The synth in this song, combined with the backing vocals that hit at that 1:43 mark, is what really drives it, in my opinion. I’ve been singing the praises of the backing vocals, and I shall sing them louder now. Origami Angel knows how to build a song, bring it to its height, and end it so that no drop of energy is wasted.

This all ends with the 4:22 “Few and Far Between,” which ties right back into the title track, giving the mixtape a rounded, cyclical feeling so that you barely know where it all ends and where it begins. Every downstroke of the guitar is purposeful, and the lyrics get brought to the forefront of this one which is perfect given this outro essentially sums up the mixtape as a whole.

And I still say that I love it here, behind clenched teeth and constant fear
Cause one day it will all disappear

This lyric struck me as something so true and universal – I feel it every single day, as I’m sure most, if not everyone, also feels. It’s an absolute shame to live in a world that is so imperfect and also so temporary. You want to stop and appreciate and love, and sometimes it is SO easy to do. Other days, it feels near impossible, but you make yourself love it anyway because, let’s be real, who would truly be surprised if tomorrow we found out it was going to be the last day we all had here? Not me, that’s for sure.

Origami Angel is calling The Brightest Days a mixtape rather than an EP or an album. There’s an incredibly neat balance between experimental and familiar, which is all wrapped up with a high energy, banging-guitar-riffing, climate crisis, and anxiety-having bow. Every song is different; I love the varied guitar tones and how quickly they switch from gritty and crunchy to bright and round. Even more impressively, Origami Angel have managed to create eight stellar songs that feel as though there’s no emptiness, no SPACE where attention or momentum could be lost. The soft parts of the songs have no weakness; the large walls of sound don’t seem overwhelming, but full and warm. It feels like everything is very purposely placed, nothing haphazard or rushed. And as the mixtape fades out with that same ukulele, the same lyrics, and that comforting sound of ocean waves – It just feels natural to let the whole thing repeat

August Greenberg (they/them) is a music lover from Philadelphia, PA, who has written for Spinning Thoughts and had a journey within the music scene by fronting the indie band Riverby. They love good music and never wanna shut up about it.

PONY – Velveteen | Album Review

/

Take This To Heart Records

There are some experiences of the “CD Era” that just haven’t been replicated by the vinyl boom. Like the feeling of digging through a $1 CD bin at a record or thrift store and discovering the coolest fucking thing you’ve ever heard. Sure, there are $1 vinyl bins too, but it’s pretty rare you’ll find an alternative gem like Frente’s Marvin The Album or Radish’s Restraining Bolt amongst the Pat Boone and Mitch Miller. Maybe that was how you discovered Come On Feel The Lemonheads, and you hearing “Into Your Arms” immediately reminded you of your longtime crush. Maybe you make them a mix CD and use it as the opening track, followed by “Hey Jealousy” and “One Headlight.” Maybe I’m revealing too much about myself. It’s that sense of being in on some musical secret you want to share with someone special, the feeling of complete effervescence, and the feeling of falling in love for the very first time. That’s what it’s like listening to Velveteen, the sophomore album by Canadian rock trio PONY.

I’ve been following the Toronto band since their 2017 EP Do You, a succinct selection of emotional alt-rock made instantly personable by singer-songwriter Sam Bielanski. After a smattering of singles, including a cover of Robbie Hart’s proto-fourth-wave classic “Somebody Kill Me Please,” the band’s debut album TV Baby landed in 2021. This release was a clear step up, a more fully realized project anchored by catchy singles like “Chokecherry” and “Couch.” The album also cemented PONY’s core lineup of Bielanski and now-partner Matty Morand, who plays bass for the group and has previous credits with Self Defense Family and Lychi. While I enjoyed TV Baby enough, I was patiently anticipating a follow-up that would pack even more of a sticky-sweet punch. Velveteen is far more than I could have asked for, absolutely skyrocketing the band to guitar-pop perfection.

I think of albums like Bark Your Head Off, Dog by Hop Along, or Mood Ring by Kississippi in the same context as Velveteen. All three are standout voices of emo and indie rock that built off the formula from their previous album and found the uppermost echelon it could reach. This isn’t to say that I think Frances Quinlan, Zoe Allaire Reynolds, or Sam Bielanski “sold out” or purposefully delivered a more accessible project, but there’s a notable increase of energy and yearning on all three of these albums that eclipses their predecessors. On Velveteen, that energy is introduced without any reservations on album opener “Très Jolie,” its guitar intro is unavoidably attention-grabbing before Bielanski begins the first verse. “Do you ever picture us together? Standing beneath the glitter in the sky.” Then, the beautifully simple chorus: “I wanna kiss you. I wanna make you mine. I wanna lie to you and say that I am fine.” It’s a statement of intent not open to interpretation, the first of ten top-notch pop-rockers.

Those blissful and sugary hooks don’t let up anytime soon. “Peach” follows suit with a Mandy Moore-meets-Green Day attitude. “Picturing the salt of the beach, ‘cause I don’t want to drown in the taste of this peach.” My personal favorite on the album is “Sick,” a song that should be the biggest hit of the Summer in every major market. It’s another sensational power pop anthem that delivers guitar power and bubblegum pop equally. The electronic tinges in the production remind me of recent releases from Crushed and Hatchie, both artists who have been riding the line of ‘90s-influenced alt and pop perfectly. If a remake of 10 Things I Hate About You is in the works, this song should be a shoo-in for the credits, with PONY playing Letters To Cleo.

In Velveteen’s 35 minutes, not one of the ten songs fails to get stuck in your head for at least a little while. Like the bright landscape of “Sucker Punch” or the dreamy fuzz of “Haunted House.” If I had unearthed this record from a shop’s clearance bin, “Who’s Calling” would have been the centerpiece for my heartfelt mix CD roster; a song that channels the desire of calling your love interest but being too scared to say something. With lyrics like “Are you home all alone thinking about me? Wondering why the phone keeps ringing?” and “Can you tell that it’s me by the way that I breathe?” So far, it’s now 2023’s second great Canadian indie rock song that I’ve reviewed about reminiscing on phone calls after “Telephone” by Andy Shauf.

It’s almost overwhelming how great every track here is, making it extremely difficult to say anything other than “a perfect pop song” about each of them. When the second side of an album is just as strong as the first, filled with sharp cuts like “Did It Again” and “Sunny Rose,” it’s simply a testament to Bielanski and Morand’s compositional chops. Morand leads a project of his own called Pretty Matty, whose 2019 self-titled album (and recently released Heavenly Sweetheart) could fit right in rotation with Velveteen. It’s clear that their shared musical loves contribute to their strong personal chemistry.

“French Class” is the one notable moment of deviation, but it doesn’t feel out of place at all. The mostly electronic-led track is a longing ballad, describing someone who “will never be mine, my heart breaks with every breath they take.” The music video is a composite of various lo-fi footage, enhancing the affection of its narrator from afar.

I still purchase physical media whenever I can, but there’s one crucial element of music streaming that echoes CD collecting in a big way. Everyone who’s had a car with a CD player has experienced leaving the same disc inside of it for days, maybe even weeks, without changing it. Letting it go from the last track of an album right back to the first, an endless loop of excitement and obsession as you drive around. Thankfully, most digital streaming platforms have an “album repeat” button that has the same effect, and Velveteen is the poster child for the feature. From the final moments of “Haircut,” it seems required to start the whole album over and listen again. Considering you could fit two full runs of the LP on one CD if you wanted to, and with how addictive every song is, it makes cycling through Velveteen multiple times a no-brainer.

PONY has consistently released difficult-to-deny pop bangers since their inception, but it’s with Velveteen that they reached a monolithic height in the form of a second album. It’s impossible to listen to this thing without having a smile on my face every time, embarrassingly bobbing my head and sliding across my worksite floor throughout the entire runtime. For anyone as in love with ‘90s alternative as I am, you absolutely cannot miss this one. It’s appropriately nostalgic while still undeniably current, wearing its influences on its sleeve while not being fully reliant on them. Velveteen is an album destined to begin again, poised for North American superstardom, and a perfect soundtrack for heart eyes and butterfly stomachs.

Logan Archer Mounts once almost got kicked out of Warped Tour for doing the Disturbed scream during a band’s acoustic set. He currently lives in Rolling Meadows, IL, but tells everyone he lives in Palatine.

Clearbody – Cordelia | Single Review

/

Self-released

I don’t know about you guys, but I always have to find ways to get through the winter. The beginning of the season is okay because it’s padded with holidays, vacations, and traditions that give you nice little milestones to celebrate as the days get shorter and the temperature gets colder. Then the new year rolls around, the weather stays shitty, and you realize you’re in for at least another two to three months of this. Especially where I grew up in Portland, Oregon, the dreary weather can stretch into April or May, making for months straight of grey, cloudy, sunless days. 

This past winter, I found myself going on autopilot when the days got hard or tiring or long. Some days felt like they passed by at warp speed, other times, they drug on in the most spectacularly agonizing ways. I had a few things giving me hope as I weathered the long, thin, occasionally snowy Denver winter. One was my relationship, which has been a bright spot in my life for the past year and a half, warming me up and invigorating me whenever I need it most. Another thing keeping me going was the knowledge that all of this will end and that the frigid Denver winter would eventually give way to spring. The last thing helping me push through was “Cordelia” by Clearbody. 

The latest single from the Charlotte shoegazers comes hot on the heels of “New Essence,” which they dropped early in May. While “New Essence” was a boppy mid-tempo rocker that extends nicely off 2020’s One More Day, “Cordelia” kicks things into high gear for what is easily the most upbeat (and borderline-pop-punk) song in the band’s portfolio. 

“Cordelia” starts with a far-off reverb-y jangle and several carefully-placed cymbal taps. Not too far off from anything you’d expect in this genre. About 30 seconds in, everything snaps into place as the band launches off into a propulsive, uplifting trot. All at once, the song goes from a dreamy, languid shoegaze haze to a sunset drive down the coast. To feel this warmth back in January felt like getting a glimpse of the sun on that first true day of spring weather. 

I don’t usually talk about receiving music early because 1) it’s corny and can feel like bragging, and 2) whenever I get music early from an artist I like, a part of me feels obligated to write about it. This has been a dynamic I’ve struggled with ever since the early days of this blog and is only relevant here because when Eric Smeal, the guitarist and lead singer for Clearbody, sent me an unmixed version of Bend Into The Blur, it was arriving in my life at the exact right time. 

Only a couple of weeks into the new year, I followed the Soundcloud link without hesitation, eager to hear what the band had been concocting since their 2020 debut. A classic case of an excellent December release that flew under the radar, it wasn’t until Swim Into The Sound’s own Connor Fitzpatrick interviewed the band that I decided to revisit the LP. By the time winter 2021 had rolled around, I was in the middle of a personal shoegaze renaissance, and the eight songs on One More Day made for a quick punch of shoegaze riffs that I could quickly down in 25 minutes. 

By January of 2023, I was hungry for anything new from the band, and Bend Into A Blur is the exact kind of mid-point update I needed from this group. Five songs that each explore a different avenue of the shoegaze heavy grunge sound. Throughout the release, you can hear inspiration from contemporary bands like Cloakroom, Superheaven, and Narrow Head alongside a clear reverence for classic genre staples like Hum, Nothing, and Smashing Pumpkins.

Clearbody’s new EP was also recorded by Jon Markson (Drug Church, Koyo, One Step Closer) and mastered by Will Yip, making it evident that they were going for a slightly tougher, more hardcore sound than their previous efforts. Despite the cuffed pants tough guy cred and thicker skin, the choice to end the release on a four-and-a-half minute pop rock track with a chorus like an Oasis song is inspired. I’ll say this as plainly as possible: “Cordelia” is one of my favorite songs of the year. It earned that title easily back in January, mainly because there wasn’t much competition, but the song has held firm for six months now, and I don’t see much eclipsing it in the back half of the year. 

At the same time in early 2023, I was listening to (and loving) the self-titled album from Stress Fractures, an emo punk band from South Carolina helmed by Martin Hacker-Mullen, who also happens to play bass for Clearbody. Hearing new music from both projects in such close succession unlocked something in my brain. It felt like I could hear the two artists building off of one another in real time, inspiring and pushing each other to reach further. There’s a well of shared influence and mutual admiration, but they’re also each carving out their own specific lane. As a former Jail Socks freak, one of the biggest things for me was hearing some remnant of that bouncy Carolina emo style drip through. A song like “Cordelia” harnesses that energy and then cranks the reverb and distortion to blistering levels, which I’m all about. 

Throughout the first six months of the year, I’d throw on Bend Into A Blur and sometimes even just “Cordelia” on its own, because the song is just that good. The EP has motivated me through frosty walks and frigid grocery store trips; all the while, I daydreamed how wonderful these songs would sound once summer finally rolled around. Part of me found it hard to bite my tongue about “Cordelia” before the release was announced. I didn’t want to be the one to let the cat out of the bag that Clearbody was back, but I wanted to shout this song from the rooftops and sing along with my windows down. Instead, I listened in isolation, silently mouthing along the words as I waited for brighter days and warmer weather. Now those brighter days are here, and so is “Cordelia.” 

Bend Into A Blur releases later this week on 6/16. I’m excited for the world to have these songs, but most of all, I’m excited for them to finally soundtrack summer adventures that aren’t just in my head. 

Beach Fossils – Bunny | Album Double Review

/

Bayonet Records

Sometimes a writer wants to review an album. Sometimes two writers want to review an album. Here at Swim Into The Sound, we’re innovators and trailblazers. That’s why we invented The Double Review, where two people share their thoughts on the same album. It’s two reviews for the price of one. Will the writers agree? Will they conflict? Will it devolve into a bloody brawl? Read on to find out.

Elizabeth’s Review

Discovering Beach Fossils as a teenager was one of the great fortunes of my young life. They were (and continue to be) one of those bands that felt like a wish come true, making songs that seemed to be the very manifestation of yearning, numinous adolescent feelings coalesced into sonic form. Their music was too composed and polished to be surf rock, too mellow to be post-punk, and the label “dream pop” felt too reductive. Beach Fossils was a band that felt fresh and exciting, but was never exhausting to listen to. In high school I told a friend that if I had to attach a song as the soundtrack to this period of my life, it would be “Daydream,” off their debut record.

Five years since their last release, I am in a new era of life, but it seems like Beach Fossils haven’t changed at all. In their new album, Bunny, they stay true to their atmospheric roots with bright, dreamy melodies and lyrics that gush with longing. The sunshine instrumentation of the band shows little variance from their previous work, spangled with bright guitar lines and cocooned in their familiar resonance. There are even a few instances of the band exploring entirely new sounds, like “Run To The Moon,” which throws a rare pedal steel-sounding tone into the warm mix of sounds. 

Hesitant experimentation aside, Beach Fossils delivers a serviceable addition to their repertoire. Warmly psychedelic atmospheres were dappled across almost every song. “Dare Me” recalls the dreamy textures of their earlier releases, laced with distortion out of a shoegaze track that would have sounded perfectly at home on their 2011 EP What a Pleasure. “Tough Love” is another highlight, with a faster tempo that carries jangly, intricate guitars and the most beautiful vocals on the album.

The record swells with delicately composed songs that play like lemonade, sweetness with a sour undertone. Some of the lyrics feel a bit juvenile for a band so established; back in the day, the Beach Fossils angst used to be relatable; now, it just makes me feel old. (See, for example, “Welcome to California / fucked up when we were younger” and “Out on tour just finished this pack of cigarettes / and I don’t even smoke”). The same goes for songs about staying up all night making bad decisions. The ethos of the record feels dangerously close to mistaking cynicism with wisdom, like wearing sunglasses while watching a building burn.

Further on in the record, a few notes of humility, perhaps even maturity, emerge. Songs like “Anything is Anything” paint a portrait of a person engulfed in ennui, grasping for meaning amidst diminishing pleasure from parties, drugs, and girls. One song later on “Dare Me,” lead vocalist Dustin Payseur sings, “Sometimes all you’ve got is your friends / sometimes you can’t even count on them.” Is this maturity, or is it disillusionment? 

On the whole, Bunny glimmers with the familiar; the guitars twinkle, the melodies flow, the resonance remains the same. New listeners will surely be enthralled, while longtime fans will probably be satisfied. Yet something feels amiss at the heart of this production. Since the last Beach Fossils record, I’ve grown up. Why haven’t they?

Elizabeth is a neuroscience researcher in Chicago. She writes about many things—art, the internet, apocalyptic thought, genetically modified mice—and makes electronic music in her spare time. She is from Northern Nevada.

Mikey’s Review

My first two listens of Beach Fossils’ laid-back indie pop comeback record Bunny were exactly as intended– the first while frantically pecking at a keyboard writing up my final exams for my English degree, and the second at three o’clock in the morning, drunk as hell with the windows down in my roommate’s car. It struck me in those moments as a unique masterpiece in the realm of modern dream pop, hitting on all the jittery post-punk notes of the band’s Somersault sound while finding plenty of time to slow down and introduce us to Dustin Payseur’s inner Hope Sandoval. Sure, it ran a bit long, but I was drunk as hell, and the cool night breeze was rushing through my hair– I couldn’t have cared less. 

Single “Dare Me” boasts beautifully arranged guitar melodies and a traditionally danceable groove that evokes the band’s biggest hits (think “May 1st”), and album highlight “Anything is Anything” vividly recalls the rapturous atmosphere of The Smiths as its steady rock beat holds down dreamy, washed-out guitars. Payseur’s vocals are, for the large part, filled with the ennui listeners have come to know and love; delivered in a complete monotone, he clings to safe and functional melodies while the guitars and bass carry the weight of the harmony. Though he fails to enunciate any word that isn’t “cigarette,” Payseur conveys his tales of late city nights and drug-fueled romance serviceably. Fans will enjoy the earnest but sophomoric verse when they pull the lyric sheet out of their brand-spankin’-new vinyl sleeve (being oh so careful not to bend the edges!), but the freshmen on campus will pick up the vibes despite the mumbling. There’s no better balance to strike in the eyes of a 21-year-old drunken transsexual– I even jotted a reminder in my phone to tell the world that “this album fucking rules, and no one is allowed to say otherwise!!!!!!!”

However:

Upon further listening, the record’s actual sound began to grate on me more and more. The guitars, at times perfectly dialed in to chime-like yet driving light overdrive (“Don’t Fade Away”), hit as either too grating (the R.E.M.-inflected “Tough Love”) or too weak to carry the anthemic vibe (“Anything is Anything,” a song that would sound exactly like “How Soon Is Now?” if it just had more oomph to it). The drums are limp and lacking texture across the record, as the producer opted for a very safe corporate-indie sound that neither detracts from nor enhances the playing. The bass guitar burbles as any record indebted to ‘80s college rock should, but it feels cold and callous– whereas 2017 Beach Fossils filled their recordings with amateurish warmth and thickness, this effort feels overly clinical. The half-hour-and-change runtime feels like forever, and no new or different sounds come and go– the only thing that changes is the songwriting. Like driving down a suburban street, the record is maddening in this respect– though each song contains a unique interior, they’re all covered in the same coat of white paint.

For a band that has emphasized its sonic and aesthetic minimalism for some time, trimming the remaining fat feels unnecessary and uncanny– like looking into the face of a robot desperately trying to emulate a hipster, buying a pack of American Spirits to impress the woman behind him in line at Rite-Aid. 

THE COFFEE CORNER

Though I no longer live with my (ex-) roommate Nick, a Phish fanatic who told me he was playing Chivalry II “and [getting very] angry” in a Type O Negative t-shirt at the time of our phone call this week, he wanted to let readers know that the new Beach Fossils sounds like “Brian Eno for soccer moms.”

Mikey Montoni is a nonfiction writing student at the University of Pittsburgh, originally hailing from New York. When she's not writing, she's bruising herself attempting skateboard tricks, playing with her punk rock band, digging through bookstores for '70s pulp sci-fi paperbacks, and wandering Pittsburgh in search of good coffee.

Gia Margaret – Romantic Piano | Album Review

/

Jagjaguwar

Every 17 years, the cicadas descend on eastern North America. More accurately, the “periodical” brood emerges in these intervals to join its cousins who appear annually. Both varieties belong to an order known as Hemiptera, or “true bugs,” that includes several of nature's more reviled creations like bed bugs and aphids. Cicadas are notable for the carcasses they shed among the trees and their distinct mating call, which lands somewhere between a chain-smoking cricket and a bullfrog sucking in a helium balloon. Safe to say, most see them as a nuisance. 

Gia Margaret sees them a little differently, undergirding the meditative third track on her new album with their calls. It’s the one titled—you guessed it—“Cicadas,” and it was the first song she wrote for Romantic Piano, the one that prompted her to write an almost entirely instrumental album of piano compositions. After toiling away in the Chicago underground, working odd jobs and playing open mics, Margaret broke out in 2018 with There’s Always Glimmer, which cast the steady thrum of slowcore forbearers like The American Analog Set atop skittering electronics. While touring Glimmer, she was diagnosed with laryngitis and put on strict vocal rest; The droning synthesizer loops she played out loud in her apartment to ease her anxiety were coaxed into songs, which became 2020’s mostly instrumental Mia Gargaret. She’d intended to go back to songwriter fare for her third, but faced with a mass solitude event–and her second bout with major isolation in as many years–words failed. She returned to the piano, the instrument she’d grown up playing and mostly abandoned for guitar after dropping out of music school. 

Romantic Piano plays like a walk through sun-dappled woods. At times this is actualized literally, as when the sound of twigs crunching underfoot surfaces to bookend “Ways of Seeing.” Often, however, it’s figurative, like on the searching “Juno,” where synths punctuate Margaret’s questioning piano phrasings. The way her compositions unfurl, swelling and shrinking as if by instinct, gives them a sense of childlike wonder. It’s almost psychedelic, in the same way a mushroom trip returns you to a state of innocence while rendering you aware of that regression, the melancholy of knowing that the endless possibility of your youth can be attained in adulthood, but only fleetingly. As Frank Ocean once put it: “We’ll never be those kids again.”

This is reified by Margaret’s on-record rediscovery of the instrument of her childhood. There’s a clear joy in her playing across Piano, in the way her older self can find new means of expression where a younger self once felt lost. It’s a full-circle moment: nostalgic, romantic in a classical sense, overwhelmed with the sheer beauty of existence. It’s what the poets used to call “sublime,” giving oneself over to the majesty of nature and being awed, contented. It’s a kind of transcendence, an ability to be open to the universe, like looking up at the stars and recalling that you’re simply one tiny speck.

Perhaps buoyed by this newfound openness, Margaret has also crafted her loosest record to date. Most of the songs are built off of ostinatos and layered with synthesizers and field recordings, keeping everything playful and light. She cites Erik Satie and Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou as influences, both of whom played and composed with some disregard for the rigidities of rhythm and meter. Whereas she’s often preferred to work mostly solo, Margaret invited collaboration: WHY?’s Yoni Wolf receives several co-mixing credits, and David Bazan contributes bass and drum programming (even earning a feature credit on “La langue de l’amitié”). There are wry compositional jokes littered throughout, such as the inclusion of a guitar-driven piece plaintively titled “Guitar Piece.” Or the thirty-second interlude of glissandos “Sitting at the Piano”—you’d be forgiven for expecting it to launch into a crackling old Frank Sinatra ballad. 

But Romantic Piano’s centerpiece is the resplendent “2017,” which ties together motifs from across the album and Margaret’s whole discography. It’s a shimmering sound collage, awash in backmasked synth tones and replete with the sounds of children playing. Where most of the other pieces feel improvisational, this one sounds meticulously labored over, but still organic; and when a pulsing four-on-the-floor beat emerges at the halfway point, it sounds unlike anything else she’s ever made. It feels like the beginning and ending of a lifetime. As “2017” comes to a close, a voice intones, “I get it… that the joy is in getting real.” We’re left with the sounds of children’s laughter, a reminder to remain open to that youthful innocence for as long as we’re lucky to be alive.

Jason Sloan is a guy from Brooklyn by way of Long Island. You can find him on Twitter or occasionally rambling on Substack.