We first wrote about Californian songwriter Derek Ted back in 2016 when he released wilted in summer on Danger Collective Records and Sunroom Recordz & Salon. With a distinctly lo-fi brand of folk, Ted presented a “narrator in a kind of lovesick limbo,” we wrote. “Wounded and confused […] desire/need for another equaled by the conviction that moving on is the only solution.” Since, there have been a number of releases, from full-length album Better Spirit to covers of My Chemical Romance and Kacey Musgraves.
This month sees Derek Ted return with a brand new release, so strange... onlytearz. A double single written in recorded at his home studio in Burbank, California, the release is intended for our current predicament, strange DIY songs for strange DIY times.
The first track ‘so strange…’ takes this head on. With its warm guitar and wistful vocals, the song confronts the peculiarity of modest living in an age that champions busyness and bluster. With the short run-time of the track acting as its own testament to the value of simplicity, Derek Ted preaches the art of letting go, existing in the uncomplicated present. “It’s too late, I walked out into the night,” Ted sings. “It’s so strange just to live a simple life. It doesn’t have to be so serious all the time.”
The second track ‘onlytearz’ is even shorter, not even reaching the two-minute mark, though what it lacks in length is made up for by it’s naked emotion. With strummed guitar supporting a dreamy air, Ted is at his most starkly vulnerable, painting a morose moment of reflection amidst the ever-moving progress of things.
so strange... onlytearz is out now and available from the Derek Ted Bandcamp page.