The list starts off real nice and easy. Whitney's debut album Light Upon The Lake is magical summer evenings in the woods destilled on to a record. Joyous, careless, free, beautiful. Enjoy!
Whitney is a band centered around Julian Elrich and Max Kakacek, the former drummer and guitarist of Smith Westerns. After their surprisingly successful teenage band broke up in 2014 due to artistic differences and perhaps some drama and such, the two put together a new gang of friends, and started writing the kind of songs they wanted to play and going on a lot of cabin trips together. Drummer Julian takes singing duties, which leads to an unusual and maybe rather static stage setup, but his delicate falsetto vocals are beautiful and perfect for the vibe of the music. Light Upon The Lake is produced by Jonathan Rado of Foxygen, and hearing that delicious jangly Foxygen sound without the mess and noise of that chaotic band is really great. Other acts that spring to mind are Beirut at his best, Bon Iver at his most lo-fi, and some sprinkling of country and even soul.
The falsetto vocals and affectionate guitar playing form the basis of these songs, but most are fleshed out by accompanying violins and trumpets, resulting in a record that feels dynamic and fun, despite a slightly limited range of different styles and tempos. It's only half an hour long, but the brevity and lack of filler tracks works to its advantage. I could choose any of these ten songs as my #soundofsummer2016, they've all had such heavy rotation and I wish I had another Whitney record in my life right now. Leave them wanting more - and boy do I ever.
Sometimes I'm not all too convinced that this nice little ditty is worthy of a top-ten place. Occasionally a slightly more upfront guitar riff comes in, reminding you of the heard-it-before Smith Westerns period, as on "No matter where we go", but the trumpets and that bouncy summer vacation feeling wins me over every time. The quieter songs might not sound like anything special either, but they all bear the sure mark of quality that they get better with repeated listens. But I think they're best at their mid-tempo sunniest like in second single "Golden days" and the album closer "Follow".
Everything is very stylistically complete. It's got that sepia filter all over it, but it never feels tacky or over-produced. I think it's got to do with it being real, as in not fake. Life is full of those sepia moments, the ones you just know you should archive in your mind, for some time in the future when you need to feel happy, or remember one time when you were truly happy, for example in case you're attacked by a dementor. Sometimes they're melancholic-happy, sometimes they're ecstatic-happy, but most of the memories you find in that situation, will be colored in sepia. You don't set out to take a sepia picture, it's just there afterwards, perfect. That must be where the success of this album comes from.
Best tracks: "Golden days", "Follow".
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| Simple and pretty. Perfect for the music within. |
Whitney is a band centered around Julian Elrich and Max Kakacek, the former drummer and guitarist of Smith Westerns. After their surprisingly successful teenage band broke up in 2014 due to artistic differences and perhaps some drama and such, the two put together a new gang of friends, and started writing the kind of songs they wanted to play and going on a lot of cabin trips together. Drummer Julian takes singing duties, which leads to an unusual and maybe rather static stage setup, but his delicate falsetto vocals are beautiful and perfect for the vibe of the music. Light Upon The Lake is produced by Jonathan Rado of Foxygen, and hearing that delicious jangly Foxygen sound without the mess and noise of that chaotic band is really great. Other acts that spring to mind are Beirut at his best, Bon Iver at his most lo-fi, and some sprinkling of country and even soul.
The falsetto vocals and affectionate guitar playing form the basis of these songs, but most are fleshed out by accompanying violins and trumpets, resulting in a record that feels dynamic and fun, despite a slightly limited range of different styles and tempos. It's only half an hour long, but the brevity and lack of filler tracks works to its advantage. I could choose any of these ten songs as my #soundofsummer2016, they've all had such heavy rotation and I wish I had another Whitney record in my life right now. Leave them wanting more - and boy do I ever.
 |
| Happy times. Marching band people: is that a cornet way out to the left? |
Sometimes I'm not all too convinced that this nice little ditty is worthy of a top-ten place. Occasionally a slightly more upfront guitar riff comes in, reminding you of the heard-it-before Smith Westerns period, as on "No matter where we go", but the trumpets and that bouncy summer vacation feeling wins me over every time. The quieter songs might not sound like anything special either, but they all bear the sure mark of quality that they get better with repeated listens. But I think they're best at their mid-tempo sunniest like in second single "Golden days" and the album closer "Follow".
Everything is very stylistically complete. It's got that sepia filter all over it, but it never feels tacky or over-produced. I think it's got to do with it being real, as in not fake. Life is full of those sepia moments, the ones you just know you should archive in your mind, for some time in the future when you need to feel happy, or remember one time when you were truly happy, for example in case you're attacked by a dementor. Sometimes they're melancholic-happy, sometimes they're ecstatic-happy, but most of the memories you find in that situation, will be colored in sepia. You don't set out to take a sepia picture, it's just there afterwards, perfect. That must be where the success of this album comes from.
Best tracks: "Golden days", "Follow".
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