today finds melina duterte, known for her work as jay som, revisiting material from the recording sessions that yielded last year’s excellent full-length, everybody works. two songs from those sessions that didn’t land on the album, “pirouette” and “o.k., meet me underwater,” have been packaged together as a 7″ single, due out january 26th via polyvinyl records.
“pirouette,” the single’s a-side, is a delightfully crunchy slice of pop, filtered through duterte’s signature lyrical lens and capped off with a woozy ostinato of a coda. take a listen below.
owen is sonically a far cry from mike kinsella’s work in seminal chicago outfits like american football and joan of arc, yet its sparseness and vulnerability still nestles in close to the rest of his output’s affecting tendencies. for his latest solo effort, the king of whys, due out july 29th via polyvinyl records, kinsella decamped to justin vernon’s april base studio to record with sean carey and a host of eau claire’s finest session musicians. the more collaborative nature of these sessions shows on lead single “lost,” with kinsella’s soft acoustic guitar strums bolstered by pedal steel swells and tasteful orchestral pads. it’s a gentle offering, swaying peacefully in the summer’s breeze. take a listen to “lost” below.
pillar point’s sophomore full-length marble mouth is already among this year’s stand-out bodies of work, with scott reitherman fastidiously doubling down on his dark yet invigorating brand of dance music. one of the album’s sturdiest singles, “dove,” was recently tapped by director jacob krupnik to use in a vogue-centric music video that follows kia labeija through the streets of bogotá, colombia in pursuit of an elusive lover. the video premiered on the creators project earlier this week; navigate there to read more about the project’s history and then watch the clip for “dove” below.
scott reitherman’s self-titled debut as pillar point in early 2014 read as a successful reinvention. a dark undercurrent coursed through equally-murky pop constructs, molding an ominous presence that all but dared listeners to either furiously dance or studiously absorb its lyrical content; multi-tasking was not a feasible option. but it turns out that pillar point was just the tip of that particular iceberg. on his sophomore follow-up, marble mouth, reitherman plunges into the depths of his aesthetic and emerges with a refocused and incredibly urgent end result.
disconnected relationships are still very much a central tenet of reitherman’s lyrics, but he’s more direct about these issues on marble mouth; the very title of “part time love” is a concession of the limitations geographical distance can put on even a committed romance, while “dove” fleshes out the subsequent strain and exhaustion from both parties. these melancholic expressions soak into most of the album, though reitherman allows himself moments of catharsis on the sprightly penultimate cut “underground,” re-routing emotional weight to third-person narratives before letting loose with the resounding hook of “give me what you need / i’ve been working overtime.”
if pillar point was a pop album that occasionally ceded to reitherman’s dance-floor urges, marble mouth feels like the opposite. pop constructs exist insofar as most songs have a discernible verse-chorus structure, but they’re routinely padded with firm indulgences into experimental textures and static harmonies. tracks like “black fly on a white wall” and “lafayette” funnel observations on new surroundings through robotic vocal deliveries and punishing ostinato bass grooves before wandering off into uncharted musical territories, while “gloomsday” is a dreary homecoming built around radio samples and a frenetic amalgamation of agitated synth motifs and steadfast percussion.
outside production from of montreal’s kevin barnes and percussion contributions from members of washed out and kishi bashi help to keep marble mouth from becoming an insular extension of its predecessor, but reitherman of course deserves the lion’s share of credit. if there’s any cop-out hedonism on this album, it’s buried miles-deep beneath extensive self-examination and an adventurous, eclectic sonic palette.
even the most accessible songs benefit from this meticulous writing process; “dove” rests its laurels on the polyrhythm interplay between strings and a four-on-the-floor beat while “playtime,” the album’s filthiest cut, uses its titular sample to foreshadow both the track’s eerie descending vocal melodies and its irresistible syncopations.
still, the most impressionable aspect of marble mouth is arguably its biggest outlier. after an exhausting half-hour dance odyssey, reitherman slows the tempo and eliminates much of the accumulated textures for “dance like you wanna die,” a poignant finale for lilting hearts that wonders “is there a love song that cares / whose mind she’s on?” this sudden juxtaposition is jarring, but it’s an integral piece in supporting the argument that scott reitherman has crafted the most earnest, and honest, album of his career.
scott reitherman is slated to release his sophomore full-length as pillar point, marble mouth, on january 22nd via polyvinyl records. after sharing the album’s brooding lead single,”part time love,” in late october, reitherman has deposited a second offering to digest before the year’s end. “dove” is every bit as haunting yet cathartic as its predecessor, with dizzying arpeggiated cellos and a resolute drum beat pulsating through an eerie vocal sample of the song’s title. its lyrics feel cleansing and therapeutic as well, perhaps a preview of thematics reitherman will suss out across the album’s duration. check out “dove” below.
scott reitherman’s self-titled debut effort as pillar point was one of the more captivating releases of early 2014, capable of sating even the most voracious of synth-pop appetites. now reitherman is back for round two; pillar point’s sophomore album, marble mouth, drops january 22nd via polyvinyl records. its pulsating lead single, “part time love,” premiered on stereogum yesterday and showcases an astute, full-blown execution of the darker dance passages reitherman flirted with throughout his debut. the track is the first of an album’s worth of collaboration with of montreal’s kevin barnes, who produced marble mouth at his studio in athens, georgia. take a listen to “part time love” below.
Dimestore Saints 