“A poor old woman buys a bag of plums.
A poor girl, a few feet away,
tends to colicky children.
She puts her hair back with a hair tie,
sits in her jeans on the sidewalk
and feeds them until,
the smell of ripe plums filling the air,
their screams suddenly stop. Silence.”
So opens the title track from Small Comforts, the new album from Philadelphia-based outfit The Chairman Dances. The scene is typical of the record, built as it is around the titular phenomena. The most ordinary of details—be it plums in a bag, the sharp smell of boxwood, familiar faces on a screen—facets of life easy to take for granted but impossible to live without. The seemingly insignificant things through which comfort is manifest.
Eric Krewson’s songwriting has always had a literary bent, but Small Comforts sees him lean consciously into the short story form, with each track shaped so as to be enjoyed not only as a song but on the page too. This duality became the guiding force of the record, seeing The Chairman Dances for the most part scale back the rich sound for which they have become known in favour of something more stripped back. An economy of sound and words in the manner of the best short fiction, crafted with intention, where every element earns its place.
The style is apparent from opener ‘Alone at Waverly’, where the life of the protagonist is brought into relief through a phone call with a friend. “I live alone at Waverly,” the track opens, immediately characterising its narrator. “Have my own house with a big TV / Haven’t watched TV since the kids were young.” As the sound ebbs and flows with the conversation, we learn of kids and grandkids, part time work and the passing of his wife, but moreover we get a picture of the rhythms of his days. A real-life glimpse into the life of another. Fleeting, but so full of human truth. “Say, John, could you hold a minute?” the track concludes, reinforcing its casualness and loaded poignance. “Someone’s on the other line. Probably, [his daughter] Becky. She calls me every day.”
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Something of an exception to the stripped back rule, ‘A Year Spent Floating’ injects a full brightness, with Ashley Cubbler (vocals), Will Schwarz (bass), Dan Comly (piano), and Mike Szekely (drums) coming together in a playful and intuitive manner, following the moods of Krewson’s lyrics to lift what at first seems another mundane experience into something luminous. A father joins a Zoom call, hesitant with the technical issues and etiquette of such a space but talked through the process by the group. Seven people meeting online, praying together, taking turns to occupy the software’s ‘large square’ to talk through their intensely personal losses. We hear from Jason speaking on the death of his brother, coaxed by the others. “He says he’s scared, if he lets go, he’ll lose / himself, be carried away. / We say it’s OK to let go.” The reluctance leads to quiet, but the patience doesn’t wane. “We sit in silence for one, two, three minutes. / Jason opens his eyes. He’s surprised he’s still / with us, surprised he’s still in the large square.”
Jason rubs his eyes with his fingers. Lets out a
“Woo.” We tell him we love him. We promise to
check in again next week.We finish the prayers, sit in silence, and, one by
one, log off.
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A great deal of variation exists across the songs. If ‘Everything Slant’ and ‘The Day’s Length’ sit on the page more like poetry, the the title track is perhaps a prose poem. While the likes of ‘Margaret’, a vignette told in the style of a 50s ballad, even come complete with dialogue, and it is a testament to Krewson’s writing how the different voices can come through even in singing, allowing for some humour too. “Don’t I know you?” one character asks. “I don’t think so.” / “What do you do?” / “I’m a singer.” / Esther snorts. “I mean, ‘What do you do for money?'”
But despite this stylistic experimentation, the album functions as a cohesive suite, the fluidity of the sound and the shared thematic resonance allowing each song to pass seamlessly into another. The effect is to conjure a sense of community, as though across the polyphony of voices and diversity of experiences exists some shared spirit. Something human, searching for solace wherever it might be found.
Small Comforts is out now and available from The Chairman Dances Bandcamp page.
Album art by Heather Swenson, photos by Rachel Del Sordo