Gabbo is the solo project of Washington D.C.-based Gabbo Franks, who makes music that glides effortlessly between freak folk, experimental indie pop and emo-tinged heart-on-sleeve introspection. The result is a distinctive personality that’s clear from the very beginning of debut album Corn, out now on Gardenhead Records. Because while opener ‘Reminders of Home’ might appear a simple tale of homesickness with clear echoes of cited influences Sadurn and Deer Scout, there’s a something idiosyncratic beneath the surface which stands apart from its contemporaries. A tone which owes as much to The Chicks or even Neutral Milk Hotel in its joyful, wacky style.
This balance between bedroom pop earnestness and left-field strangeness marks the record. Take the title track, a song which speaks of wearing a Mitski shirt “like body armour” and watching the glow-in-the-dark stars on a bedroom ceiling, but ultimately pushes these emotions to their raw conclusions. “And I will wear the scalps of men who sought to harm her,” Gabbo sings, “I will be angry until death / I’ll use my final dying breath to tell them.”
‘Swallow’ and ‘Birthday’ are equally caught up in the emotional weather of the situation, ranging from reflective tenderness to black fatalism (“I think I’ll slam my stupid head in the dishwasher tomorrow,” as the former details). Sitting at the centre of the record, ‘To Be Alone’ acts as a kind of pause in these proceedings, a space in which Gabbo takes stock of the world around them. A track of bright acoustic guitar and piano leavened further by an underlying bed of field recordings into which the listener is slowly submerged in the closing segment, mirroring the reconnection.
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‘Too Far’ ponders the regret of the failed situation, mourning the things lost as a consequence, before ‘To the country’ returns home to the fog and the bay and the chicken shit, finding the hope of a new beginning in the most familiar of places. In some ways, its penultimate track ‘Who Else’ that’s the real highlight. Franks is joined by a bunch of friends, a chorus of voices that lend a campfire-style, almost ritualistic atmosphere that swirls and swells and eventually soars. Its the perfect illustration of the duality at the heart of Corn, earnest emotion sitting next to almost mystical psych folk experimentalism. Watch the video by Kyle Sandhoff below:
Corn is out now via Gardenhead Records and available via the Gabbo Bandcamp page.