As promised, today brings another excellent release from Slovakian label Z Tapes (if you missed it, we reviewed a great album by Ruth & Trudy last week). This time it’s an album called WHATEVERLAND by The Washboard Abs (aka Clarke Sondermann), who is based between Anchorage and Denver. He describes his music as “jingle jangle nonsense”, but you can be the judge of that.
The first song, ‘Death & Taxis’ is soft acoustic bedroom pop which is almost overwhelmingly heartsick and romantic, with lines such as, “I long to live alone with you” and “my everything exists for you”. This is followed by ‘The Way It Goes’, which is way more upbeat, with ramshackle percussion and carefree guitar. Things are still loved-up though, which is no criticism, “I don’t believe in love” Sondermann sings, “but you’re all I’m dreaming of”. The song also contains the great line,”I hope you feel bored and lonely too”, which seems to sum up our fear of being different and desire to find solidarity, to find people just like us. ‘My God’ is another rattly DIY indie pop song, opening with the line, “I’m afraid of everybody, I’m afraid of you”. Both of these songs are reminiscent of a super-earnest Swim Lessons, which is high praise.
Things then get a whole lot sadder. ‘The Day Draws Near’ is just plaintive acoustic guitar and Sondermann’s voice and what feels like empty space. Its sad but in a cosy, reassuring way – sounding like being alone in an empty room on a rainy afternoon, when the not-quite-twilight has that blue-grey quality and the only sounds are raindrops on the glass and the shooooshing of passing cars. It’s just three minutes long and deceptively simple but the atmosphere it manages to conjure makes it one of my favourite songs of the year so far. Sondermann sums up the mood when he sings, “In your backyard, you talk to God / about the heartbreak you forgot”. ‘Downtown’ is another pretty sad song, with a lovely gentle flow to the melody of the lyrics:
“I will go to a forest where all tired souls are bound,
I will go downtown
I will sink to the bottom of the sea without a sound,
I will go downtown”
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‘Constant’ is another love song, with just acoustic guitar and tender lyrics, “the morning light surrounds you, darling, the wind is in your hair / the afternoon I found you, darling, I knew that I was there”, while ‘Don’t Know a Thing’ reintroduces percussion and confronts self-doubt head-on, “I am scared, I’m unprepared, I’m unaware of the ways I’m wrong”. The final song, ‘Way Down’, is perhaps brighter and breezier than previous tracks, but retains the sensitive and sincere vocals, opening with the lines, “I hide my fears way down, way down / where you dry your tears, way down”. The track reminds me strongly of Cataldo’s Prison Boxing, although I have no idea of how to articulate why that’s so.
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All in all it’s a really really great album and I’m again eternally grateful that the folks at Z Tapes brought it to my attention. Fans of Radiator Hospital, Field Medic and Talons’ will all find something to love I’m sure.
You can get WHATEVERLAND on limited run cassette tape, or a name-your-price download via the Z Tapes Bandcamp page.
P.S. The Washboard Abs Bandcamp page has a bunch of other releases, including a new EP which features a cool Yo La Tengo cover. Check it out, it’s good I promise.