Sunday Morning Seinwave

Music by Abelard. 

"Car" by Porches

I love the hypnotic sense of equilibrium and pastel stasis in this video, directed by Daniel Brereton. Everything feels frozen, like a strange department store. Taken from Pool, the arresting new album by Porches, "Car" is a propulsive midnight drive that shimmers with Smiths guitar and rolls along a thick backbone, like the line of Shelby GT500.

When asked about the song, lead singer/songwriter Aaron Maine said: "I just liked the idea of shedding something and how amazing that feels to kind of discover something new or to feel like you're finding yourself in a different way." Listening to Pool, you can feel that same sense of Maine trying to define himself, trying to shed past lives and emerge as something of his own creation. Something amazing. For the listener, it is a similar experience. Preferably at night, listening to these stories melts away layers of guarded emotion underneath the cloak of anonymity provided by the dark hours between one and three A.M. On the other side of dawn, you too emerge different. Having shed. 

Pool is a beautiful slow dive, through waters of loneliness, longing and wanting to be safe. Porches has crafted a focused, nocturnal tribute to the unease you feel when everyone else has gone to sleep, and you can't stop hitting "refresh," waiting for something new. Something amazing.     

Pool by Porches is a Domino Recording Company release, available where all fine music is sold.

"Living here used to make sense when I was 25." →

I recently got back into composing music and writing songs, several of which I made demos of in the winter of 2015 and the following spring. One of these, "Family Tree," is now available to download online through SoundCloud if you are so inclined. It's good company, and plays well with others on your music device or phone. 

It's a rough draft though, unmastered & recorded in my mom's kitchen. Maybe a bit soft. Normally I'm leery of sharing works-in-progress, but I've always been intrigued by the organic quality of a demo that's still finding itself - stretching its connective tissue to other instruments yet to be added. To that end, I feel comfortable sharing it this way, because my main goal with my music hasn't always been sonic perfection, but rather, evocation of emotion & memory.

I hope, if anything, it's a pleasant aural diversion that isn't too much of a drag to listen to. Lord knows I love the darker shades.

-Sean 

Meredith Axelrod

The picture above you depicts two versions of the profoundly gifted folk singer/songwriter Meredith Axelrod. I drew "Blue Meredith" at what must've been two o'clock in the morning after a fitful night of sleep, as if it woke me up to roar itself into existence. 

Trapped like a firefly in a jar, the original picture from which the illustration is based, illuminates my mind intermittently, and has done so in the five and a half years since I first saw it. Truly, it is one of my favorite photographs of all time, and keeps my drifting thoughts company at the most wonderfully inopportune times.

When I showed it to Meredith, she said, "You captured what I meant to convey by the photo."

I don't know what either is supposed to convey, but I captured it. Whatever it is. And that's something to be proud of.

Meredith Axelrod's evocative, stirring Americana folk music can be heard on Soundcloud. 

"Try"

There’s a specific lyrical choice made in Japanese Breakfast's tragic and penetrating "The Woman that Loves You" by singer/songwriter Michelle Zauner, that speaks to the larger, fragile heart of their stunning debut LP, Psychopomp: 

The word “try.” 

In the context of the song, this word edges its way into the chorus, suggesting: “Don’t you think? Don’t you think? You should try to do as little harm as you can/To the woman that loves you.”

It’s a heartbreaking detail. A whispered suggestion to someone not in the hopes of an end to the emotional abuse they dole out, but rather, less of it. They should “try” to make an effort. For the character in this song, the more realistic goal for her isn’t liberation from this man, but rather settling for a finer grit of sandpaper on her psyche. One that she can live with. 

Psychopomp is rich with such detail, in rivers of narrative that stretch from feeling lost in relationships that are out-of-focus, to the weariness caused by years of a partner’s casual cruelty slowly grinding away at your patience.

In “The Woman that Loves You,” Zauner is embarrassed, upset that she’s let this relationship push her boundaries inward tighter and tighter, like a dog trapped in the backseat of a stalled out car: “You’re embarrassing me,” She confesses. “With a postponed marriage and this stalled out car/Then you leave me in the back/With half a window rolled down/Like a dog/Like a dog in the summer heat.” 

Listening to this song, you can’t help but think that with all of her anger notwithstanding, she’s never once verbalized her plea for all of this to stop. Thought about it plenty of times for sure, but never out loud. Never to his face. 

As the song winds down amidst a sea of frosty blue synthesizers, choral guitars, galloping drums and pulsating bass from the evocative performances of Ned Eisenberg, Nick Hawley-Gamer, Colin Redmond & Peter Bradley, the couple finds themselves “gazing out for better things,” knowing that they’re both reaching the end of the proverbial road. But perhaps they’ll give it one last chance. Or at least, they’ll try.

Psychopomp by Japanese Breakfast is available for purchase though Bandcamp and streaming for subscribers to Spotify, Pandora & iHeartRadio. 

"Found yourself in a new direction, eons far from the sun."

I came across Beach House's Bloom while sifting through the CD rack at my local Goodwill on the corner of 16th and Indian School in Phoenix, AZ. A pleasant textural surprise, the raised cover art of a seemingly endless array of white dots vanishing into inky darkness caught my attention and drew me in. I knew not of any of their prior releases, but loved the cover, and followed my gut. It was doubled-packed with a homemade Ritmo Latino Vol. 6 CD, complete with a torn Avery label face sticker, which was a bonus.

I went jogging that night and couldn't believe my good fortune of plucking such a sublime, rich nocturnal drift of an album from the void. Bloom is a gorgeous record, soaked in reverberated guitar, fragile Casio keyboard drum loops and haunting vocal arrangements that hang perpetually suspended in smoky atmosphere.  

"Myth," the album's opener and first single, is a Cocteau Twins-inspired sonic lullaby that is equal parts mourning the decay of what's "dead and gone," and embracing change of what's yet to come, as you find yourself "...in a new direction, eons far from the sun." Even though you're hurtling through pitch black darkness, of which there is much to go around on when listening to Bloom, there is a luminescence to the milky light that shimmers off of songwriters Victoria Legrand & Alex Scally's work that keeps you inspired to move forward.

"Tell me that my world is pink, not blue."

I first met Heather Marie Ellison, the singer/songwriter known as Uni and her Ukelele, at an intermission for a show I was stage managing in San Francisco in 2006. The theatre company had been playing her debut album My Favorite Letter is U as house music at my gentle insistence, it having originally been made known to me via the recommendation of my dearest friend from film school. 

She arrived rolling behind her a day-glow pink suitcase with a rainbow travel strap, rose petal ukelele tucked beneath her the crook of her right arm. Dressed in an outfit not too dissimilar to the one you see above, she appeared like a bolt of rainbow piercing the gunmetal grey and charcoal intersection of Van Ness and Geary outside. She played a handful of selections from her latest release during intermission as a guest performer, while audience members sat nonplused, unsure of what to make of the stories woven by her and her ukelele, tales of heartbreak and loneliness spangled in bright plucks of string and bubblegum pink.

I introduced myself shortly after she returned her gear to her traveling suitcase and proposed that maybe I could draw a poster for her someday. "Sure," she said with a smile. 

I revisited her first album this spring on the eve of its 10th anniversary, each song ringing with the same clarity of vision and spirit that had originally captured my interest a decade ago. My Favorite Letter is U is a resoundingly satisfying record, and a deeply personal piece of art that addresses the dissatisfaction with growing old and out of love, old wounds that refuse to heal and the indomitable spirit that keeps the world bright while everything around you seems to be getting darker with every broken high heel. "Tell me that my world is pink, not blue," Ellison pleads on the final song, its namesake a coda that reverberates with each repeat listen and speaks to the healing power of music itself.

Layered with ukelele, guitar, kazoo, xylophone, melodica and fuzzy keyboards - the eclectic and vibrant songs collected on this release are a sly veneer to the deeper messages of melancholy that run as major themes beneath the entire album. An aural companion to the city of San Francisco, a luminescent port of call that seems to draw people in like moths looking for renewing flame, My Favorite Letter is U is enriched by a cast of characters that pass by each other like cable cars: shitty ex-boyfriends, charming but hollow lovers, burnouts, dreamers & frauds, each with a story that blooms for a short while in fifteen finely-crafted indie pop gems. 

I can still remember Uni rolling her suitcase away from me after shaking her willow wisp of a hand, thanking her for performing that night ten summers ago. White go-go boot heels clicking on pecan terra cotta tile, she firmly pushed against the bronze-plated door of the lobby of the Cadillac Building, only to brave another perpetual evening drizzle of rain on her shoulders. Indomitably, she hoofed up a 30-degree incline towards a bus stop off of Geary Blvd., to wait for her ride through the arteries of city back and home again - home again to write more songs & dream of brighter colors. She dreams for me when I listen to her music now, and I long to stave away waking up every time.

My Favorite Letter is U is available to stream for subscribers of Spotify & iHeartRadio. It is available for purchase through Amazon, iTunes and unimusic.us. 

"The shadows seem familiar..."

Earlier this month, my dear friend Ellyn Maybe & Robbie Fitzsimmons released their debut LP, Skywriting With Glitter, an essential release for the adventurous listener who yearns for something brave and new. A composer and vocalist of prodigious talent, Fitzsimmons dances alongside Maybe's intricately-crafted poems that are intimate, yet cosmically gorgeous in scope. Each song is crafted like a miniature universe, and seems to limitlessly expand with each repeat listen.

When I go running in the evenings, I rely on a stable of "night albums" to carry me through the twilight. They range from Harry Nilsson's ethereal 1973 standards album A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night to Deep, Peter Murphy's third solo album. Each one is laden with its own atmosphere, and chosen thusly. When I bought Ellyn's new album on iTunes shortly after getting a sneak peek, I put it on my iPod and went for a midnight run, not knowing that I'd only get about 27 feet before I'd have to stop and walk slowly down the sidewalk for the rest of the way, so as to not disturb the delicate soundscapes that Maybe, Fitzsimmons and the recording engineers had created.  

"The shadows seem familiar," is a line taken from "The Girl in the Wishing Well," a stand-out track on this album strengthened by the most consistent and heartrending motifs of Ellyn's writing that she's been exploring for the better part of the past twenty years - the intrinsic sweet sadness of a family's love, longing for a sense of belonging & dreams that seem just out of reach. At the bottom of the well, you can hear Fitzsimmons angelic vocals and Maybe's distinctive voice echoing upward - yearning to escape, and the emotional resonance of the song is devastatingly powerful. 

"The Life of a Raindrop" is a nimble showcase of Fitzsimmons dynamic range as a performer and virtuosity on the piano, shifting from thunderous to sprinkling keys that skip along with his soaring vocalization. "Marathon" is propelled forward by a truly haunting refrain, "...one shoe at a time," and the piece addresses the struggle of trying to find your footing in a world that has lost its way. The entire composition stirs with a sense of weariness & dread, with trembling piano rolling ceaselessly underneath Maybe's sharp use of imagery and evocation of anxiety and fear. In the end, no matter where the needle drops in between the ten songs on this record - you're gonna land on a captivating piece of songwriting that you won't be able to shake for days after.  

Skywriting With Glitter is available on Spotify, iTunes and through Amazon in both digital and physical format. You can also visit them at ellynandrobbie.com for more information about seeing them live in the Los Angeles area and beyond. If you have an appetite for poetry and music combined in a way that commands your attention, you cannot miss this release. If anything, it'll give you a great soundtrack for your next moonlight mile in your favorite pair of sneakers.

This, the first of what I hope to be, many posts.

I was working on some 1/12 scale miniatures this summer, and in the background, I listened to a pretty steady diet of late 80s/early 90s Pet Shop Boys - one of my, along with my sister's, favorite musical groups.

They fused fragile humanity with the muscular aural language of 80s synth pop and created a unique combination that is so quintessentially proper and very evocative for me. It always brings me back to the white linen hallway outside my sister's old bedroom, hearing the rolling bass lines on their landmark 1993 album Very pumping through the walls.

One such track is "Can You Forgive Her?," whose video is enriched with some terrific art direction & costumes by theatrical producer/artist David Fielding. It's a drama-laden track, which makes me think of its spiritual cousin, the stone cold 1987 classic "It's A Sin." The two songs address closeting one's feelings to avoid shame, rejection and ultimately the devastation of one's soul. Each character in the song is haunted by their past, the former by his repressed homosexuality, the latter by his oppressive Catholic upbringing.

Through it all, I just love the fact that both Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe are dressed like nightmare candy corn while they sing about psychic torment. Such a bold choice at a pivotal shift in the band's trajectory, all the while fully realizing their marriage of orchestral sound with programmed synthesizers that would come to define them for the next decade.

Give it a listen, enjoy those fantastic pointy hats, wish you had some & have a look around. I'm glad you're here. 

-Sean (8/21/16) *The first of what he hopes to be many posts.