Posted: by The Editor
Released in 2021, Sailor Down’s Skip The Line is a gorgeous and haunting EP, building its sound from Chloe Deeley’s vocals and acoustic playing (an echo-y fingerpick at times, a steely strum at others), with sparse programming touches to round out the tracks. On last month’s “Bat Signal,” Deeley expanded that sound a bit with some more active electronics and a slightly quicker pace.
Today, Sailor Down is back with “Bug,” instrumentally the group’s biggest track yet, and the second off their upcoming Lookout Park. While the tempo has more punch than anything Sailor Down has put out to this point, “Bug” fits in well with the world created in Skip The Line, as the highlight is still Deeley’s casual vocal delivery and songwriting style. The chorus of “quiet is a doctrine I can’t follow / content is a word I haven’t heard / I will break my heart with comedy and no one will know me / you’ll be married to your solitude and I’ll catch the bouquet” particularly sticks out, although ear-catching turns like “little things to corral while I figure the real shit out” are also scattered through the verses.
On the track, Deeley said “Bug is the first song I recorded with a full band, although it started like most of my songs do—in an alternative tuning on a parlor sized guitar. My friends Conor Maier (Kitner/Oh, Yes) and Mike Hlady (Holiday Music) sang on the choruses and I credit their contributions for how the song sounds now. Conor wrote a really melodic bass part on the spot and Mike defined the structure with drums and did a killer job mixing. Thematically, the song is about restlessness, self-sabotage, and self-medication. It’s been really rewarding to take these melancholic songs and play them with my friends and turn them into something bigger and sort of celebratory.”
Lookout Park is out on June 9, with cassettes available through Relief Map Records.
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Aaron Eisenreich | @slobboyreject
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