Album Review: Claire Tucker – Same Old Hunters

Claire Tucker – Same Old Hunters
(2020, Drums and Wires Recordings)

Back in August, Claire Tucker sent me a pre-release copy of her upcoming release Same Old Hunters, out this Friday Oct 23rd via Drums & Wires Recordings and co-produced by Claire & Colin J. Nelson.  Claire is the frontperson for Seattle-based Loose Wing, which blends early ’80s new-wave & ’90s alt-rock with 21st-century indie-rock. On her first solo EP, she explores textures reminiscent of ’60s pop, Elliot Smith-level songcraft and even Springsteen-referencing yearning on “Mary of Rain.”

Below is an email I sent Claire after spending time with the EP and that I hope will be effective as a proper review in convincing you, the reader, to listen.

The EP is available for streaming now at the label’s site, and will be available for physical or digital sale at Bandcamp this Friday (tomorrow!)

So here’s my two cents . . . a long-winded response of the Late-Night Non-Stoned Variety.

First off, the EP sounds fantastic. The production and guitar/vocal-layering especially is extremely well orchestrated and comes off as the opposite of kitchen sink in that it doesn’t seemed crammed and no part seems superfluous. The execution is clean and baroque in regards to the individual parts and how they effortlessly interact.

Your vocal performances are strong and have a confidence that fit this material in the same way the more fragile approach fits the Loose Wing album. Overall, it seems from a songwriter’s perspective like a natural follow-up to the Loose Wing collection without having to adhere to LW’s sonic template since this is a solo release. i don’t think anyone is going to wonder why you didn’t do a LW EP instead or just call this Loose Wing since the distinction is obvious.

Mixing-wise, I don’t have a ton of feedback. There’s continuity in approach for all the songs that creates an internal logic to assess the various mixing levels effect against.

#1-August
Musically the opening fanfare is an amazing way to start an EP and promises what all the songs end up delivering on. And if you’re planning to release either this song or the whole EP soon, it definitely has a mood and some individual lines (“I know full well I’m meant for these times”, “they’re not coming home from the war”. . . actually this whole SONG takes on extra layers without shedding the old ones if you hear it as taking place in Aug of 2020) that take on new context in our current climate that the rest of the songs benefit from by having this song set the tone.

#2-Tigers Make Milk
Putting this right after August makes it almost seem like the narrator here could be Darlene from the other song (“answer the door” line tying to the “shut the damn door” line of the  previous song is one corny example). The sense of loss and the subtle nods to religious mockery are also red herrings (or are they?) one could draw connections between.

But what I REALLY like about having this as the second song is using that opening line as a delayed thesis statement to the whole EP since it (and all these songs) make me think of the conversation we had a few weeks back about the different kinds of nostalgia there are and the usefulness each of those types of nostalgia may or may not have. By having this narrator mock the other person’s sentimentality at the beginning, you’re putting this song firmly in the anti-nostalgia camp . . . especially coming after “August,” which seems to be focusing on the immediate surroundings of the present because the specifics of the past are too painful to consider.

And this narrator WANTS to like “old-fashioned shit” too and WANTS to raise the dead via nostalgia too but just doesn’t get how to do so in a non-schmaltzy way. But there’s hope because even tigers make milk etc., etc.

#3-Mary of Rain
And then we have this narrator who IS looking back though not in the self-indulgent process of idealizing by whitewashing. Instead, there’s confrontation of true trauma and a desperation to resolve said trauma. Is she driving away or toward at the end? It doesn’t matter, only that she’s in motion.

Musically and lyrically, this song becomes the centerpiece of the EP as sequenced. Years ago I took a trapeze lesson because I’m scared of heights and wanted to see if I could face down that fear at least once in an extreme situation (And I did! But I haven’t been on a trapeze since . . .) and it feels like that’s what the narrator here is doing. She or he or they is someone who doesn’t look at old photo books or even those memory notifications on Facebook. Maybe it’s the same person singing Tigers Make Milk . . . or maybe they’d just make really good roommates.

That’s what makes the yearning at the end so powerful because it’s been established both in the song and in the larger narrative context of the EP that defaulting to sentimentality as a reactionary emotion is NOT how these characters are wired. So when they ARE forced to remember, it’s out of necessity . . . not to automatically fill the void of the present with the emotions of the past

#4-Tickets and Tapes
Here we finally learn the necessity of nostalgia can’t be avoided. The runaway dog is the memory you WANT to think about but the rest are the memories you NEED to think about (if only to clear out the junk still taking up space at your parent’s house).

It’s the old story of abstract vs. practicality, played out as all your life choices swirl in taunting retrospect around you when you’re just trying to organize and throw old shit out. The most significant moments are those untriggered by the physical souvenirs but by the memory of a sensation you know will never be repeated.

And this is said in such a matter-of-fact and confident manner that it retroactively absolves the tenuousness of the previous songs’ narrators by framing their actions and emotions as part of a search that DOES have the potential to find what it’s looking for. Because the narrator of THIS song came to the realization that the others have not but still can.

ALSO also, you could TOTALLY pair each song in this sequence with each of the 4 seasons (I’m sure THAT’S never been done before hah hah) as a thematic gimmick:

August = summer
Tigers = fall
Mary = winter
Tickets = spring (spring cleaning!)

. . . in case you need another promo angle or something to exploit in the artwork.

Thanks again for letting me hear these! I love these songs and hearing them right now via these recordings will no doubt tie them to this time for me as much as the Loose Wing album did last spring. I can’t wait for everyone else to hear these as well.