Ball of Wax 56 Songs: Schruggs – “Anyhow”

Posted on June 18, 2019 by Lattney B. Jones

Joshua Schramm and Kevin Suggs have played together before as part of a larger ensemble and their reciprocity stands out on “Anyhow.” Under the name Schruggs, they grace Ball of Wax 56 with this buoyant roots-pop number that functions as a bittersweet ode to love lost, and they sound like a human portmanteau, an amalgam of the best qualities of two artists serving a single purpose.

Schramm delivers his message in a comfortably homey drawl, accompanied by a fingerpicked acoustic guitar that chimes out a melody that will stay with you long after learning of arms haunted by the ghost of an embrace and the admission of having thrown it all away. The end of each gilded lick is given space to ring by an absent or unaccented fourth beat from the otherwise chest-thumping percussion that may be live, electronic, or maybe another near-perfect combination in a song full of them.

Be sure to listen to “Anyhow” on headphones at some point, because there are several sonic elements—such as a buried vocal coo that colors parts of the song in a very different hue—that are best experienced with the music up close and personal. And speaking of up close and personal, be sure to catch Schruggs at the Ball of Wax 56 release show this Thursday, June 20, at 8pm at The Blue Moon!

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Ball of Wax 56: James Kelly Pitts – “Rose Colored Wine Bottle”

Posted on June 17, 2019 by Levi Fuller

We’ve heard James Kelly Pitts in many modes: lo-fi weirdo, pissed-off polemicist, field-recording dronemonger, climate mourner, and more. “Rose Colored Wine Bottle” is possibly the most straightforward track I’ve heard from him – a slow, gorgeous, meditation for finger-picked guitar and James’s hushed baritone, backed by subtle swells of steel guitar. The subject seems to be a tragic figure, the tone set with the opening line, “She picks up a rose colored wine bottle and begins to say, ‘All that time I waited on somebody has just been a waste.'” A series of images follows probing the depths of faith and addiction. As you might guess it’s a pretty bleak landscape, but there are moments of light and even laughter – although probably of the bitter sort. There is no redemption to be found here, but there is beauty – as there always is – in the darkness, so we might as well surrender to it. In the words of our protagonist, “my glass might always be half-empty, but it’s never too early in the day.”

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Ball of Wax 56 Songs: Chris Moore – “Threads”

Posted on June 17, 2019 by Levi Fuller

Our old friend Chris Moore (last heard on Volume 49, first heard on Volume 2) returns with the gorgeous “Threads,” from his new EP Sunday Painter. The song starts with a quiet, spare guitar part and Chris’s voice, quiet and clear. You can hear the room in the recording, and within a few bars you’ve probably got it pegged as stripped-down bedroom folk (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Yet somehow, less than a minute in, you’re suddenly surrounded by a full band, swirling guitars – is that an orchestra? In less deft hands this dynamic excess might all come across as a bit much, but here it’s exactly right. The song continues, alternating quiet verses and explosive instrumental choruses, and then somehow it gets even bigger on the bridge, cascading wind instruments, more guitars, Chris really opening up on the drums and with his voice. Then the dust settles and we’re back where we started, that quiet guitar and the line we began with: “Some of us get down and dirty, for they don’t come easy, the rare melodies.” If getting down and dirty is what it took to deliver this song, I sincerely hope Chris keeps digging for us.

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Ball of Wax 56 Songs: Darryl Blood – “Can’t Say It”

Posted on June 14, 2019 by Lattney B. Jones

Although the larger portion of Darryl Blood’s recent work has been instrumental—from soundtracks to gallery installations to his recent album, Parse (reviewed here on Ball of Wax!)—he has released a number of albums as a singer-songwriter and been a member of several acts (Tiltmaster, Hail Citizen, and ’90s Boston “no-wave” outfit Turkish Delight) wherein his vocal abilities were featured to some degree. In that respect, his song “Can’t Say It” from the new volume of Ball of Wax should come as no surprise . . . and yet it does.

Rolling along on some shiny 4/4 percussion, “Can’t Say It” boasts an arrangement that gives equal attention to each instrument in the mix (but the piano figures steal the show, from melodic accompaniment to straight-eight staccato chord forms to the tastiest trills you’re likely to hear) and showcasing Blood’s skills as a singer-songwriter. The biggest surprise here isn’t the song’s traditional structure, breezy sound, or homage to ’70s Laurel Canyon—it’s the subject matter. In less than five minutes, Blood delivers sunny pop cloaked in atypical metaphors that don’t try very hard to disguise the fact that this is a love song, albeit a “strange kind,” as attested in the song’s lyrical hook.

“Can’t Say It” is a maddening reminder of just how far modern pop music has strayed from the poetic wordplay and organic presentation that once defined it, but it’s also a welcome ode to those qualities from an artist who has built his career on left-turns and a refusal to settle into the norm.

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Ball of Wax 56 Song: Amanda Winterhalter – “This Is It”

Posted on June 12, 2019 by Lattney B. Jones

There is as much talent to be found in this world as there is beauty, and just as part of the challenge of seeing beauty depends on context and circumstance, so it goes for talent. Both qualities exist in and of themselves. I have seen Amanda Winterhalter sing accompanied only by her acoustic guitar and I can testify that she possesses a level of vocal talent that is almost supernatural in its ability to stir the soul.

Here’s where context and circumstance come into play. Ms. Winterhalter has put together a band that functions not as “back-up,” but as an extension of her own talent and vision. This wouldn’t work if the members of the band didn’t have their own individual talents to bring to bear—and they do so in spades on “This Is It,” a work of thematic and dynamic depth and grace that uses the eruption of Mt. St. Helens some 39 years ago as inspiration to delve into an Americana/gospel rumination that incorporates just enough Biblical imagery to keep it from evangelizing and instead evokes the death and rebirth of that holiest of spiritual experiences: love.

“This Is It” is a work built on the elements of tradition: a slow lilt composed of playful-but-powerful drumming, upright bass, electric guitar (both tremolo and buzzing), lap steel, and vocals that have to be heard to be believed (Ms. Winterhalter wails—WAILS—at points in a way so emotive and barely restrained that one could almost believe she was a member of Lazarus’s family). What the band and their leader does with these elements is both reverent and transcendent, using their talents to brilliantly contextualize the beauty of sound.

Amanda and her voice and guitar will be joined by Ed Brooks and his pedal steel at the Ball of Wax 56 show next Thursday, June 20th at the Blue Moon. Join us!

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Ball of Wax 56 Songs: Poor Neighbors – “First Time Caller”

Posted on June 10, 2019 by Zach Warnes

“First Time Caller” by Poor Neighbors is just one more reason to be excited about a yet to be announced release from this thoughtful duo based in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, WA. Taking a page from the handbook of their previous group, St. Kilda, Josh Morrison and Jon Wesley deliver a driving, up-tempo, pop masterpiece with elements of post-rock and lyrics that emote the pains of growing older and gaining experience. This song in particular seems to draw on a wide variety of influences both contemporary and otherwise, but what I found most striking and what I am often impressed with from this duo is the attention to detail and care they put into their work. This atmospheric track sheds the cheesy urgency that is often tied to more emotionally driven rock music and replaces it with gobs of patience and space.

It is clear to the listener that these fellows have a deep appreciation for and understanding of ambiance in their music. The dulcet sound of Morrison’s voice weaves beautifully with every shimmering reverb trail on this track. Each guitar and synth line stays in its place without ever becoming too busy or too up-front. All parts complement each other and enhance the song, creating a vastness and depth for Morrison’s words to ring out into, “. . . stand to be be alone long enough to really know what’s best?” Morrison calls for patience and wisely reminds the listener to check in with themselves before charging headlong into relationships or situations where even more patience and sound judgement will be required.

This is a solid effort from a great band. Can’t wait to hear more from Poor Neighbors down the road.

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Ball of Wax 56 Songs: Holly Small – “Ghosted”

Posted on June 7, 2019 by Levi Fuller

Longtime Ball of Wax friend Holly Small returns with “Ghosted,” a  spare track that does a lot with a few ingredients. A minimalist electronic bed of beeps and boops backs up Holly’s jazz- and R&B-inflected riffs on life from the point of view of a ghost. The term “haunting” is overused in music criticism – especially in connection with women’s voices – but it applies in a very literal sense here. Holly’s voice is strong and sure yet sensitive, and her words inhabit the loneliness and displacement that would likely come with being an actual ghost, if such a thing existed. One of art’s superpowers is to elicit sympathy in unexpected places, and our friend Holly has done a fine job flexing that sympathetic muscle in “Ghosted.”

Holly will play this and other favorites (including, I hope, a few we’ve heard on BoW before) at the Ball of Wax 56 show on Thursday, June 20th!

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Ball of Wax 56 Songs: Green Light Cameras – “This Useless Lullaby (303 Remix)”

Posted on June 6, 2019 by Lattney B. Jones

Over gurgling sawtooth synths, reverberating booms, and searchlight-in-the-dark choral swells, Green Light Cameras present words of wisdom, lamentations, and resignation centered on D major. I’ve spoken before about the power of this most sinister of tonics, and while its darkness is present here in literal/nocturnal form, our sleepless poet masterfully—woefully—wrings from this tone every bit of malice, leaving only dread-tinted longing . . .

. . . at least for the first and second verses. A change begins to take place, announced by an unsteady rattled buzzing and the sudden inability of the choral voices to reach their former glory. When they finally do, we’re set up perfectly for the reveal. It’s in the final verse that “This Useless Lullaby” shows its real beauty: sustained G and A tones impress a IV-V ascension on the listener as our narrator confesses that he needs to be lifted up from “this abyss,” and indeed—even in the depths of despair—the tonal movement brings an undeniably uplifting aspect to the piece and that dark tonic is at last subverted and made to appear bright and hopeful.

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Ball of Wax 56 Songs: Grumpy Bear – “Wojciech Frykowski (Dead Playboy Song)”

Posted on June 5, 2019 by Louis O'Callaghan

“Wojciech Frykowski” begins with a bouncy electronic bass and then builds layers of acoustic and electronic textures and hooks over a four-chord progression which, apart from a bridge section a bit over halfway into the song, repeats for the song’s entire 5 minutes and 54 seconds. This is a great example of how much you can do with a relatively simple repeating structure and just loads of creativity adding and subtracting elements, particularly when each element is thoughtfully composed and fits perfectly into the whole.

One prominent sound is of what might be a balalaika or mandolin and lends something of an Eastern European folk feel to the track, while somehow also, when the vocal melody comes in, reminding me of ’60s California folk bands like the Byrds or the Youngbloods. I was getting these vibes before looking up Wojciech Frykowski to find out he was a Polish man murdered by the Manson family in LA in 1969. Coincidence? At the same time the electronic elements place the song inside of more recent decades.

It’s an interesting song and I like it.

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Ball of Wax 56 Songs: Frames in Motion – “Behind the Face”

Posted on June 4, 2019 by Lattney B. Jones

Jaded as I am with commercial music and the industry in general (my indignation isn’t necessarily righteous or justified—I’m just continually upset at what gets on the radio and what the general populace seems to want), I have come to expect that “perfect pop songs” are to be found no more. Then I hear a little song like “Behind the Face” by Frames in Motion, a Seattle band fronted by multi-instrumentalist Jack Shriner, and I rethink my expectations.

Make no mistake, this is almost straight pop, though partially of the dream variety, with its soft vocals; the folk variety, with its non-traditional instrumentation (a bass harmonica, which sounds gorgeous and is completely essential here); and the slacker variety, with its trailing snare taps and nearly-buried cowbell. Riding on an arrangement of jangling guitar and playful bass, it’s beautifully played, sweetly sung, and feels fresh.

Shriner and his cohorts have delivered here a lovely ditty about nostalgia and the truths revealed in the analysis of memories. The familiarity one senses in the various parts of the recording dare the listener to analyze their own aural memories—there’s nostalgia in the music as well as the lyrics, but of a type harder to pin down: the song is familiar enough to feel like an old friend or a place you haven’t seen in years, but different enough to assure you that it’s not who or what you had thought. That’s how you know you’ve heard pop songwriting at its best.

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