Brooklyn’s Dead Painters originally consisted of a group of visual artists, and while the band has evolved since its inception, something of this spirit remains in their exceptional explorations of ordinary life. Balancing a nostalgic sense of sadness with soaring jubilance in a manner reminiscent of Frog, Oliver Beardsley (percussion), TC Brownell (bass, vocals, keys), Marlene Bowles (guitar) and Japeth Mennes (vocals, guitar, bass) weave a harmonious sound across which Mennes’ baritone emerges, sounding somewhere between laconic and loving.
Indeed, how to interpret the Dead Painters sound is left entirely to the audience, with a certain ambiguity encouraged and developed. The effect is both distinctive and effective, the spaces left for the audience’s imagination giving each track a more real organic feel, gaps that allow context and meaning to be decided individually. In many ways, this is not unlike our experience of life, where we are given snatches of information, glances at faces, though never the complete picture, instead conjuring our own understandings from whatever we can glean from what’s around us.
The band are set to release their sophomore album, Endless Idle, later this year on Rue Defense, and we’re happy to share the lead single. Taking inspiration from Hal Hartley’s 1997 movie Henry Fool, ‘Fool on Fire’ really speaks to the above themes, presenting a series of distinct sights and sounds that are interlinked by their presence in the narrator’s experience. Opening like a wistful sunrise, the song’s narrator (who could be the titular character from Hartley’s film) rise and move through New York, the city full of life around him.
“He was a business man
and I was a fool
all full of fire
a tool on fireHe’s gone for good
Alone in Woodside, Queens
I made my move
Where all the garbage sleeps
I hit the snooze
all full of fire
a tool on fireAll full of fire”
Endless Idle is out sometime in 2018 on Rue Defense, so keep an eye on their Bandcamp page for further information.