Tag: Desert Liminal

I Like These New Songs (Pt. 2)

Here is the long-awaited sequel to my blockbuster previous post, “I Like These New Songs (Pt. 1).” For any new readers who are unsure of what is going on: when we left off, I was linking to new songs I liked and then writing paragraphs about them. Since the first post was such a wild success, I figured I wouldn’t divert from that formula — it would be like making a Fast and the Furious movie without car races or whatever they’re doing in those now.

Colleen Green – “I Wanna Be a Dog”

Many words — some of them rather embarrassing — were spilt on the blog over Colleen Green’s last full length, I Want to Grow Up, which I then insanely listed as the #2 album of the decade when no other person who does things like ranking albums even thought it was good. Her new single, “I Wanna Be a Dog,” is another showcase of her unique gifts: while she may lack traditional ambition and creativity, she makes up for it tenfold with authenticity and (despite her tendency towards self-deprecation) a confidence in who she is. Green is in typical catchy and relatable form here, using various dog metaphors (the leash she puts on herself, barking at a closed door) to articulate her ongoing struggles with being an adult and overcoming insecurities. It’s fun to listen to, partially because it is so personality-driven and unpretentious compared to a lot of tedious indie dreck.

Angel Olsen – “Gloria”

In another career move aimed at me personally, Angel Olsen is following up All Mirrors and Whole New Mess with an EP of 80s covers, starting with this reimagining of Laura Branigan’s “Gloria.” If the measure of a cover’s quality is how well the artist adapts it to their own style, this scores highly. The original is in there somewhere, but for the most part Olsen has turned this into one of her typical swooning ballads, with swelling synths and some strings. Olsen sings like she really feels the words rather than the typical “wouldn’t it be cool and fun if I covered this song” vibe that sometimes makes covers boring and inessential.

Sungaze – “Body in the Mirror”

As someone who is on Bandcamp a lot and gets frustrated by soft pop artists who call themselves things like Satanic Witch Torture, I respect Sungaze’s straight-forward band name — this Cincinnati group sounds exactly like you’d expect, with a dreamy, psychedelic sound that is in the highly trafficked Mazzy Star area. What makes them just different enough from that band (and others like Widowspeak) is their embrace of more droning song structures that really let the sound wash over the listener. “Body in the Mirror” is a typical song from them, running over five minutes with some spacious guitar parts and simple lyrics that add some meaning without being too obvious about it.

Desert Liminal – “New Tongue”

It’s rare to find a band that truly has a unique sound, but Desert Liminal’s 2017 debut Static Thick had its own blurry, ambiguous, kind-of-poppy-but-not-really thing going on. The band has added a member and increased the production values a bit since then, but “New Tongue” still maintains their individuality. Sarah Jane Quillin’s rich vocals blend into the droning synths and her lyrics are real poetry, with personal details and the rhythmic sound of the words adding to the haunting, mysterious vibe of the sound.

Nation of Language – “Across That Fine Line”

This synth pop group made my coveted top albums list last year with their first full-length, Introduction, Presence, and are quickly following it up with an album that should lead to a break out of sorts. Generally I understand that the music I enjoy is wildly unpopular and most normal people would recoil in disgust at the mere sound of it, but I don’t know — listen to the soaring, anthemic chorus on “Across That Fine Line” and tell me it wouldn’t appeal to normies who enjoy bands like U2 and Coldplay. I’m already preparing my snide comments about how I liked them before they got big.

Desert Liminal’s “Static Thick” is a Low-Key Gem

In the sea of anonymous releases on Bandcamp, the dream is always to find a legitimately great band that you never would have heard of otherwise. It rarely happens, because there is such a saturation of music writing and critics/bloggers are eager to jump on anything that might appeal to more than five people, but sometimes a band like Desert Liminal slips through the cracks. Their recent release, Static Thick, is among my favorite albums (cassettes?) of 2017, even though it hasn’t reached many listeners.

But that’s enough reveling in obscurity. I listened to a lot of music this year, and Static Thick stood out because it has such a distinct vibe, a lot of which comes from Sarah Jane Quillin’s vocals. She has a husky voice (think Fiona Apple and Cat Power range) and sings with a bit of a drawl that adds to the disorienting, blurry nature of her songs, which explore gray areas sonically and thematically. She plays keys with various effects while Rob Logan handles drums, and the sound is about as minimalist and lo-fi as you would expect from a duo with a self-released Bandcamp record. Sometimes these bands I find on Bandcamp can sound like they’re missing something, or are still working out the kinks, but I wouldn’t change a thing about Desert Liminal’s sound, which is full and rich despite the minimal set-up.

I’m always curious to see how bands describe their sound, especially if it resists easy categorization like this one, and Desert Liminal’s are particularly entertaining: “dreamed up sike rok for high-functioning depressives” and “30 yr old woman falls in love with distortion pedals.” Both strike me as fairly accurate. The pedals and Quillin’s vocals do give the music a hazy, dreamy vibe, and the music is naturally downbeat, almost to the point of being narcotic. This fits with Quillin’s lyrics, which are gloomy and ambiguous like great poetry. There are clear themes of loss and grief, like on “Sun Limina,” but a lot of it is left open for interpretation.

The band I kept thinking of while listening to Desert Limina was another Chicago duo I was obsessed with recently: Algebra Suicide, which had a similar duo approach and a focus on dark poetry backed by minimalist music. That band was a little more lyrically driven than Desert Liminal, and had talking instead of singing, but they both create moody and powerful songs with very simple parts. And also like that band, part of why I like Static Thick is that it’s a welcome respite from overproduced music that sounds too eager to please as many listeners as possible. This is smart, challenging music that packs surprising potency in its low-key presentation.