Glare – Sunset Funeral | Album Review

/

Deathwish Inc.

Music nerds love to talk about tone. As a failed musician myself, I’m obsessed with a great tone despite never being able to achieve one in any of the bands I’ve been a part of over the last fifteen years. I could write a novel’s worth about records with great tones, like the futuristic post-punk frenzy of Wipers’ 1981 seminal sophomore LP Youth Of America, the thick smoked-out sound of Acid King’s 1999 stoner rock masterpiece Busse Woods, or the crystal-clear shimmering production of Porcupine Tree’s 2005 contemporary prog cornerstone Deadwing. It’s one thing to have an album full of great songs, but when the songs actually sound great and everything is dialed in just the way it should be, the listening experience is that much better. That is the case with Sunset Funeral, the tonally impressive debut album from Texas alternative rock group Glare.

The old adage of bands having their entire lives to make their first album is Glare’s call to arms: for eight years, they’ve been slowly churning out singles and EPs, starting with 2017’s Into You and 2018’s Void In Blue, both successful initial projects that have garnered millions of streams since their release last decade. In 2021, Glare returned with Heavenly, their most substantial offering thus far but still not completely reflective of the band they’ve become. Their eleven-song output that precedes this new album is but a blueprint, a test run, a work in progress, the calm before the Sunset. These new eleven songs that make up the band’s debut LP are explosive from top to bottom and result in some of the biggest-sounding independent rock music I’ve heard in the last year and a half. This is a windows-down with the car radio cranked type of album, a get-a-call-from-your-landlord-to-stop-making-so-much-noise-during-“quiet-hours” type of album, a blissed-out blast of ‘90s alternative reignited for the modern era.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: the band name Glare, the album name Sunset Funeral, the dreamy pastel photo album cover that goes with it, and the track names therein like “Chlorinehouse” and “Different Hue” all make it very obvious what this band is all about: thickly layered guitars, vocals so washed in reverb you could shower in them, and a general reliance on big, atmospheric rock that lets them sit comfortably with contemporaries like Downward and Prize Horse. The band and album scream modern shoegaze (or, blech, “nugaze”), but they scream it with such confidence: a big pedal energy attitude of ‘This is who we are, this is what we do, and we’re going to do it as well, if not better than anyone in the monsoon of bands filled with former emos who discovered the classic run of Dinosaur Jr. albums.’ Additionally, Glare further sets themselves apart from everyone else with their tone expertly dialed in on each element. It’s one thing to get the guitars just right in a shoegaze band: that’s the part most people focus on, but Glare has clearly spent the time to make sure every member’s instrument is showcased in a noticeable way. Perhaps the strongest of them is the drums, which have one of the clearest and most thunderous sounds on a modern record of this style that I’ve ever heard.

If you heard any of the Sunset Funeral advance cuts — the sweet and groovy “Guts,” the full-force rocker “Nü Burn,” or the overarchingly thematic tone-setting album opener “Mourning Haze” — you already got a taste of Glare’s perfection of their genre. It’s not always common for a band to deliver an entire project that lives up to, and in some cases exceeds, the power of its singles, but that’s only part of what makes this album feel so special. As soon as I turned on “Mourning Haze” for the first time, I couldn’t believe how great it sounded for a first song, with its room-filling volume and a power that I’ve rarely heard matched this decade. There are only about twenty seconds of relenting when “Kiss The Sun” comes in next, until it bursts into another bright headbanger, riding the line of melody and heaviness reminiscent of influential bands like Torche and Hum.

Sunset Funeral is an album that feels so good to be lost in; its pacing is such a perfect rhythm that it’s easy not to notice that you’re halfway through the tracklist by the time “Nü Burn” begins. Glare seamlessly weave their way through every moment of this record, even down to the instrumental interlude “Felt,” which builds up to “Nü Burn” just as breezily as it winds down from “Chlorinehouse.” The soft closer “Different Hue” glides along so smoothly that it sounds completely natural leading back into “Mourning Haze” if you start the record over again. I love finding great three-track runs on albums, like “Begin The Begin” -> “These Days” -> “Fall On Me” on R.E.M.’s 1986 alternative classic Lifes Rich Pageant, or the semi-suite of “Closer You Are” -> “Auditorium” -> “Motor Away” on Guided By Voices’ 1995 landmark lo-fi odyssey Alien Lanes. You could throw a dart anywhere on Sunset Funeral and get a great three-track run, which I suppose makes the entire album a great eleven-track run, a rare feat in 2020s emo-adjacent music.

In a style that can often be monotonous or too heavy-handed in its ‘90s worship, Glare stands atop the slew of guitar rock bands with finesse, grace, and panache (pardon my French). Whether it’s on more relaxed tracks like “Saudade” and the almost-eponymous “Sungrave,” or on any of the bombastic singles, the band breathes new life into shoegaze with every second of Sunset Funeral’s runtime. It’s one of the tightest debut albums I’ve heard from a new band this decade, and possibly even on a longer timeline than that. I have no doubt that by 2030, Sunset Funeral will be talked about the way we talk about Nothing’s Guilty Of Everything, Title Fight’s Hyperview, and Turnover’s Peripheral Vision, and for my money, I’d put it above those last two for sure. Get sucked in by the sunset, Glare is here.

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.

Babe Rainbow – Slipper imp and shakaerator | Album Review

/

p(doom) records

I was a freshman in college the first time I heard Babe Rainbow. I have a relatively blurry view of my life up until this point, but for some reason, this memory is clear. Driving around my hometown on a school break, one of my friends pulled a classic “Have you ever heard this?” and put on “Johny Says Stay Cool” off the Aussie psych-rock trio’s self-titled debut. We drove to nowhere in particular, and let the song play at least 15 times, paying attention to something new each go around. At that point in time, my Tumblr-ified “indie” alternative music taste hadn’t prepared me for something so light and quippy and fun. The congas, the warbly falsetto vocals, the whole “breathe in / breathe out” motif. It floors me to think that my early adolescence was exclusively soundtracked by gut-wrenching songs like The 1975’s “Sex” or Halsey’s Room 93 EP (real ones know that was her peak) when there was music out there that felt like the sun was shining down on you. 

Babe Rainbow have stayed in my rotation ever since that drive around Long Island suburbia. As I’ve grown, they have, too; traveling the world, exploring new ways to approach their sound, and bringing on a rotating cast of collaborators. Now, just past their tenth year as a group, Babe Rainbow are going back to their roots—in more ways than one.

Their first album since 2022, Slipper imp and shakaerator sees Babe Rainbow using everything that was so irresistible about their self-titled and reimagining it through all of the sounds and styles they’ve absorbed over the last decade. But before even giving the album a listen, I had to answer one question: What exactly is a slipper imp and shakaerator? All those letters strung together didn’t feel like English. At first, I thought it was some Australian slang, but after doing some research, I found that it’s actually a farming tool. A plow. A specific brand of plow. The Bunyip Slipper Imp and Shakaerator was a new, stronger kind of plow meant to cut through the harsh Australian terrain. 

What the hell, sure. 

An early ad for the Bunyip Slipper Imp and Shakaerator

It seemed random until I was reminded that the members of Babe Rainbow (Angus Dowling, Jack “Cool-Breeze” Crowther, and Elliot “Dr. Love Wisdom” O’Reilly) lived in the macadamia orchard of an avocado farm as teens. Talk about literally going back to your roots. The title makes it all a little concept-y, serving as a signal that the music underneath it will feel like the group coming home to their psychedelic surf rock sound. 

It’s probably self-evident, but Babe Rainbow have never been ones to take themselves too seriously. I saw the group last October at the Brooklyn Bowl, where they kept letting the audience know how grateful they were to be playing in this half-bowling-alley, half-concert-venue in Williamsburg. I swore Dowling was gonna fall off the stage from spinning around so much. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out he was mid-shrooms trip during their set. They continually returned to the fact that they’re just some surfer bros from Byron Bay, as if we already couldn’t tell from their thick accents, luscious blond locks, and overall hippie disposition.

Babe Rainbow exist in the same ecosystem as psych-rock groups like Allah-Las and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, but they take it to an entirely different level, leaning even further into what Dowling refers to as “the powers of the Rainbow,” which may or may not include the powers of magic mushrooms. 

Gizz leader Stu Mackenzie has played a major role in Babe Rainbow’s story. He acted as their guide into the Aussie scene, producing their breakout self-titled debut. Slipper imp and shakaerator is Babe Rainbow’s first album on KGLW’s independent label, p(doom), and Mackenzie is back at the helm as a producer, while also catching a few features in the tracklist. Their long-standing relationship speaks to the hyper-collaborative ethos of the psych-rock scene, and definitely helps Babe Rainbow get even weirder with it (if that’s even possible).

Slipper imp and shakaerator opens with the deep-fried, phaser-heavy, ultra-funky “What is ashwagandha,” using a gritty spoken word intro to guide listeners into the seemingly endless layers of surfy guitars, thick basslines, and echoey flute. It gave me the same fuzzy feelings I got the first time I heard “Johny Says Stay Cool,” and that told me everything I needed to know about the album in its first four minutes. 

That breezy, sunshiny psych-rock is present throughout the whole album, with the tracklist branching off into different renditions. Single “Like cleopatra” has an ‘80s funk-meets-disco lean, complete with all the ‘do do do’s you’d expect. Reverb-heavy guitar riffs, echoing synth passes, and some literal beeps and boops make it feel like you’re flying away in the spaceship the group is singing about. “Apollonia” takes an instrumental turn, with acoustic guitar dripping in reverb and some sci-fi synth swells that create an eerie dissonance. The guitar patterns sound like the exact middle ground between Spanish guitar and Indian sitar. The track is hypnotic and sneakily moving and has slowly become one of my favorites. It’s a moment where Babe Rainbow turn their quintessential sound on its head, reminding listeners of all the other influences they’ve picked up over the years. Putting the acoustic guitar and flute through similar effects as the synths creates an entrancing mixture of analog and digital, something else the group seems to love to explore. 

Aussie rock shaman and longtime friend of the band Stu Mackenzie offers up some of his classic blown-out guitar textures on “When the milk flows,” a mid-album track that feels like it could soundtrack a round of Mario Kart (and I say that extremely complimentary). Some signal tones and French spoken-word lead us in, giving the illusion of a flight preparing for takeoff. The background synth sequences play with that in-transit sense of urgency, building tension with the sheer tempo, letting the vocals (texturized with a vocoder) double down on that build, then exploding through the fuzzy, Gizz-esque electric guitar passes. The track eventually goes into a half-time break, creating an undeniable groove that eases all of the tension before fading out. 

The following track, “Mt dub,” creates a circling psych jam that sounds like a mixture of the funk of FKJ and the hypnotics of Good Morning. The vocoder returns on the opening lines, “The islands recommended for its dazzling rocks / Superbloom / Underwater rainforest / Rock and roll pours from the record stores / Welcome to the golden age sleep traveler,” this time sounding oddly similar to those on Kacey Musgraves’s “Oh, What A World.” On this trippy, laid-back groove, Babe Rainbow chose to remind listeners of their inherent powers in the hook “You’re underestimated, you’re more loved than you know,” with vocals that weave themselves through the same spiraling jam as the orchestral synths and persistent bass. 

If nothing else, the boys of Babe Rainbow use Slipper imp and shakaerator to once again profess their love for all things hippie and good. Single “LONG LIVE THE WILDERNESS” is basically asking listeners to sit down and smell the roses (“You’re living your life too fast”) and trust that nature will guide them where they’re meant to be, even if that ends up being a golf course (“I’m so green on the back nine”). When we take our guard down and let the Earth, Sun, Moon, and stars take us away, all we have to do is enjoy what’s around us and be ready for more good to come. Dreamy closer “re-ju-ven-ate” is a beachy, almost-instrumental akin to Khruangbin, another band in Babe Rainbow’s sphere of psychedelic surf rock. Its few lyrics concisely sum up Babe Rainbow’s entire ethos for the past decade: abundance for everyone. 

Slipper imp and shakaerator sees Babe Rainbow at their best: weird, surprising, and unabashedly themselves with little to no filter. Their years of travel and cultural exchange proved fruitful, giving Australia’s most eccentric trio new ways to harness their psychedelic powers into one wholesome, homegrown, kaleidoscopic trip. 

Cassidy is a culture writer and researcher currently based in Brooklyn. She loves many things, including but not limited to rabbit holes, Caroline Polachek, blueberry pancakes, her cat Seamus, and adding to her record collection. She is on Twitter @cassidynicolee_, and you can check out more of her writing on Substack. 

Great Grandpa – Patience, Moonbeam | Album Review

/

Run for Cover Records

Back in January, I told my partner that 2025 needed to be a year of deliberate change in our lives. We’d been living together for more than a year, and while we were comfortable, there was a complacency creeping in that neither of us were ready to accept. A string of events during the last quarter of 2024, ranging from personal reckonings with identity and loss to constant political anxiety, made me realize that something had to change, and our routines were all we had power over at that moment. I began applying to different day jobs again, they started making art in their free time, I rekindled my love for creative writing, and began the arduous process of teaching myself how to play the acoustic guitar that has been burning a hole in our wall. Now, even as many of our surroundings are the same, we are different. 

If there’s one thing that Great Grandpa would know about, it’s metamorphosis. The Seattle five-piece began in the mid-2010s by playing the brand of grungy indie rock synonymous with their hometown, but their first two studio albums saw them gradually sanding the noise off their sound. What was uncovered was a dynamic band whose tastes spanned all of indie rock, with 2019’s excellent Four of Arrows running the gamut from fuzzed-out emo to misty-eyed folk, all tied together by Al Menne’s ever-expressive voice. Then the pandemic hit, and all of that was put in jeopardy. It was unclear if Great Grandpa would still exist as lockdown sent its members on diverging paths. After years spent apart and some beautiful solo records, the quintet came back together to record starting in 2023, with Menne plainly stating upon the release of lead single “Kid” last year: “Time passed, and I missed my friends.” Patience, Moonbeam sounds exactly like what it is – five people who love each other dearly, reconnecting and bonding for the first time in years. It’s a fun, unpredictable, and bold exchange of ideas that reflects the experience of each contributor. 

There is a new sense of sharing the load that makes the record refreshingly light on its feet. While songwriting has always been a collaborative process for Great Grandpa, guitarist Pat Goodwin contributed the lion’s share of the lyrics on previous records, particularly Four of Arrows. Patience, Moonbeam, by comparison, features a few songs written entirely by Menne and drummer Cam LaFlam in addition to Goodwin’s own contributions, and it gives the songs a freewheeling feeling even as darkness looms in the background. Synthesizers, strings, banjo, and walls of electric guitar all play their role under the paradoxically cozy and adventurous alt-country umbrella that many of these songs fall under. 

“Ladybug,” the first side’s playful high point, puts every bit of that spirit on display. Menne’s hook is warped by vocal effects and a thick synth lead before settling into a jangly jaunt full of winking pop culture references. It’s easy to imagine Menne beaming as he sings “Father of the ladybug, dressed like Donald Glover on the GQ cover” in the playful pre-chorus. Even in moments where it’s clear the band are having a blast, they’re never afraid to let their guard down. The levity of “Ladybug” sells the yearning in the bridge harder than straight-laced melancholy ever could, turning it into something of a thesis for Patience, Moonbeam. As everyone sings, “Semitones are the distance between lines / All I think about is you sometimes, all the time,” I can hear just how much these five friends missed making music together. 

Immediately after, “Kiss the Dice” uses its brief runtime to send up the shifting perspectives that come with lived years. “I used to kiss the dice and roll / Now I’ve got a steady word,” hums Menne, relapsing into uncertainty as the outro fills out, “Do you think that that is worth something?” Even as he’s learned to take charge and lean into the changes life brings, that sting of anxiety never fully goes away. For as morose as their previous album could get, there’s a weariness to moments on Patience, Moonbeam that can only be the result of how much the five-piece has grown up over half a decade. The quiet strings in the intro of the opener, “Never Rest,” echo the nighttime air on the cover art, with the moon parting clouds as the song begins to evolve. First, the drums ground the dreamlike piece in a lush acoustic ballad before slowly erupting in an electric finish. 

European treks and phone calls in the track’s lyrics make meaning feel elusive until Pat Goodwin’s own voice chimes in with Menne’s for the last line: “Coming son, the winter has its dark hum, how can I retain some sight?” The doubt hanging over the track stems from his and bassist Carrie’s new role as parents – after all, how good will your guidance be when you’re actively figuring this life thing out yourself? “Junior” picks up that thread, painting a scene of a family feud and troublemaking between farm boys. Pigs are maimed, dogs are shot, and “light crimes” are committed, all from a concerned but compassionate father’s perspective. Menne dips into his lower register many times throughout the album, but nowhere is it as striking as the way he embodies the titular Junior’s reckless antics in a distinct twang.

He went swinging with a young man’s wiles
I saw him twirling and punching wild

For all the wonder and wisdom Patience, Moonbeam offers in the first half, the most powerful revelations lie in side B. “Doom” acts as a sort of centerpiece, drip-feeding tech-induced anxiety with images both dystopian and apocalyptic. “Violent screens,” “cardboard meals,” and “stocks on a good deal” are contrasted with the thrills of connection as the band alternates time signatures in the verse and chorus. The record’s most cathartic release comes in the reprise of a hook from an earlier song, “Emma,” complete with a titanic riff that gives any other song in their catalog a run for its money. All the elaborate scenery is abandoned for the blunt, spit-out observation, “It’s funny how I need you, damn / It’s perfect when I leave you, damn.” 

These twists and turns mimic life’s own trajectory. I said at the start that I was taking more action in my own life, and while it has been productive, it’s also quite difficult! For every little victory, there’s a backslide or regression - a moment of frustration with practicing guitar where you wonder if it’s even worth it, an exciting opportunity that disappears almost as quickly as it emerged – but this, too, is part of the process. Great Grandpa understand this all too well as Patience, Moonbeam ends with the single that ushered the band’s return, “Kid.” It’s a power ballad complete with heart-wrenching piano, a soaring guitar solo, and plenty of strings, but it’s the lyrics that drive everything home. Written in the aftermath of the loss of the Goodwins’ first pregnancy, mourning hangs over every inch of scenery, making the mirrored conclusions in each chorus come off as not just sincere, but genuinely life-affirming.

All good things in time define their meaning
And fold sweet ends into their mouths

All dark things in time define their meaning
And fold sharp ends into their mouths

Grief, growth, and change: these are not one-time events, but a constant process that we are always undergoing. We can choose to struggle against the ebb and flow and be lost, or look for patterns and ride the current to safer waters. In Great Grandpa’s case, they were lucky enough to be led back to one another. “Task,” a seemingly autobiographical tale of reunion and cooperation, sums that gift up perfectly. It opens on the line, “Saw you at the party we called you by your new name / You had changed, but the heart of you was still the same,” sweetly and succinctly supporting Menne’s gender transition before getting to the heart of the band’s bond. He sings about several “perfect kind(s) of song” before his bandmates join in for the outro of, “Won’t you tell me what my task is?” Sometimes, a little help from your friends is all you really need.

Wes Cochran is a Portland-based writer, worker, and music listener. You can find them @ohcompassion on Twitter, via their email electricalmess@gmail.com, or navelgazing their way up and down South Portland.

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.

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.

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