Ian Huschle – Algae Days
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Candlepin Records
I don’t really know shit about Ian Huschle. I didn’t get a single press email about this album, I wasn’t following the project previously, and about half the time, I haven’t even been able to spell his last name correctly. All this to say, I can’t remember exactly how Algae Days wound up on my radar, but if I were to guess, it’s probably because the album was released on Candlepin Records, a label mostly known for budding shoegaze and slowcore acts from the Northeast and Midwest. The music Ian Huschle is making could not be further from that, though, both in sound and geography.
Based out of beautiful Denver, Colorado, the music Huschle crafts is precious and carefully constructed–these are humble folk tunes, usually centered around acoustic guitar and his reserved Elliot Smith-like singing voice. This is breezy and pastoral music that sounds exactly like the lush, flower-covered landscape depicted on its cover. Beautiful as that yellow, pink, white, and green vegetation is, they’re sprouting beneath a murky gray sky–a subtle tell for music that goes down smoothly on the surface but still contains an unshakable throughline of regret.
Amid a stacked February 7th release day that included new records from Bonnie Prince Billy, Drop Nineteens, and Sharon Van Etten, I decided to listen to Algae Days first because I had no preconceived notions about it. Sometimes, going in blind pays off. Upon hitting play, I was immediately swept up in the unassuming splendor of “Heated Seats,” a twangy duet with tasteful streaks of pedal steel and violin. Corrina Leatherwood joins Huschle as the two harmonize to weave a frigid tale of separation. As these passages unroll, your mind may conjure images of mountain ranges and stretched-out landscapes.
The pace picks up a bit on the titular “Algae Days,” with harmonies provided by Caleb Cofsky as the two lay out how “Time is like Algae / What do you mean? / It’s growing around you / Shades of green covering me.” This vocal accompaniment paints an early impression that Algae Days is an album full of these kinds of duets, but once the finger-picked “Freezer Burn” rolls around, it’s mostly just Huschle (occasionally double-tracked) against the world.
The remainder of the record unfurls with consistently brilliant streaks of Americana. There are bright, twinkling guitars on “Road Soda,” a carefully deployed synth on “Green Baret,” and a piano on “Dog Dreams” that helps drive home one of my favorite melodies on the entire release. These songs are often minimalist in construction but never boring, and Huschle seems to know whenever to throw in a new instrument to keep things from getting too samey.
Throughout it all, we’re guided past psychological probes and laid-back observations on love that all seem to nod to something bigger just over the next mountain. Even though most of these songs touch on heavy topics (and evoke one of the world’s saddest songwriters to my Portland-born ass), there’s still an air of resilience that makes you hopeful for whatever comes next. After all, the grey skies are never permanent, and those flowers didn’t grow that tall without a lot of sun.
