Author: Rick Sosa

Singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Thomas Charlie Pedersen of the Danish indie/alt. rock band Vinyl Floor, recently dropped his second solo album, Daylight Savings Hour.

Based in the Nørrebro area of Copenhagen, Pedersen recorded the album totally DIY-style in his apartment together with his brother drummer Daniel Pedersen. Daniel is also Vinyl Floor’s drummer.

On his latest effort, Pendersen continues the acoustic and minimalistic stylings of his debut album solo effort, Second Hand War, that dropped in 2016.

“Unlike the first album – which was quite introvert and personal – the new album sees me writing mostly about other people,” Pedersen says.

Not surprisingly, his songs focus mostly “on the lyrics and melody and a few lyrical wordplays thrown in for good measure.” He writes and sings about the commitments of love, relationships and growing older, and about “illusionists, otherworldly interference, melancholia, and women in trouble.”

“We utilized strings, vocal harmonies, and alternate guitar tunings,” says Pedersen. “We experimented with noise and reversed sounds during the recording sessions.”

Such is the case, however, the themes and moods of the two recordings differ in noticeable ways.

Gripping melodies and bittersweet melancholia color many of Pedersen’s songs, including tracks such as the emotional “Moveables,” and the acoustic tenderness of the opening track, “To A First Love” and the provocative “Blood World.”

One of the standout love songs on the 14-track album is “Stay True.” The song features Pedersen’s songwriting and vocal skills alongside bright acoustic strings and synth keys.

His vocal abilities include matching harmonies with his acoustic guitar-playing, especially on tracks like the heartbreaking “Faithful Mistress.” This is true as well on the lovely standout track, “Must Be The World.” The folk-rock instrumentation is set as the backdrop for Pedersen’s vocal harmonies and story-telling.

The title song is a reference to the tradition of daylight savings time and a metaphor for desiring light in an increasingly dark world.

On the track, “The Merriweather Pull” – which follows the touching opening track – feels vibrant and yet melancholy, where the sweet harmonies of his vocals overshadow a theme that includes calling out for help from Superman/Clark Kent himself.

The irony of “The World is Not Your Oyster” should not be lost on the listener because the 70’s A.M. soft rock feel and finger-picking (similar with “Moveables”) can disguise the true message of the song, which is about being respectful and grateful for the world because it is the oyster of future generations – on loan (and boy did we fu*k it up).

Then there’s the fun and interesting instrumental, “The Witty Moniker,” which is just like a shot of guitar adrenalin.

During the recording sessions for his debut solo album, Pedersen purposefully left out songs that were, he says, “more extroverted.” His plan was to create something of an artistic statement that was easy to grasp: first album, many of the songs are more “personal and introverted.”

Because human nature, and relationships, and finding our place in the world can be difficult and painful, songwriters do often end up – sometimes without fully realizing it – writing and creating words and compositions that express, in various ways, the human condition wherein the ying and yang of isolating, or opposingly, of socializing, are perpetual struggles.

Therefore, it is a simple, and concise and relatable, concept. By dividing up a bunch of songs into those two themes gives the pair of Pedersen’s solo albums worthy of listening to, not just for indie lo-fi DIY acoustic fans, but for other songwriters as well. (It’s always smart to study solid songwriters if you are an aspiring songwriter).

Pedersen played all of the instruments himself while his brother Daniel contributed some guitar overdubs, arranged strings and added vocal harmonies.

Running time:37 mins

It has been a big year for Ashland, Oregon indie rock/power pop trio Summer Colds. The increasingly popular band dropped their debut single, “Whiteout,” last spring followed now by their anticipated debut album, Here Comes Nothing.

For an album with a title that is more than modest, this baby delivers some things – that are 90s-retro in many ways.

It’s hard to review this album without throwing out various subgenres of indie and alternative rock. The ‘throw-back’ DIY-sound of Here Comes Nothing is consistent across most of the tracks, including the melodic fuzzy rock vibe of “Low,” pegged by a neat little hook that’s hard to shake.

The vocals, led by guitarist and vocalist Nic McNamara, will remind some right away of the indie band They Might Be Giants. That’s not an original observation; many who have heard his voice, especially in the context of retro alt-pop, have said the same.

The second track of the eight-track album is the forward-driving song, “Found,” with its adherence to 1990s alt/indie pop-rock ethos.

As it turns out, “Found” is more than just another track on the album. According to McNamara, it is also the sole track on the album that set the tone for Summer Cold’s musical style.

“Found” projects a refreshed take on the 90s southern California alt-pop sound of bands like Weezer. It sports that laid-back slacker dynamic reinforced by Nicole Swan‘s booming basslines, McNamara’s chugging guitar and Claire Burgess‘s bouncy, energetic drumming. McNamara also plays bass and drums.

Actually, McNamara says, the song was originally written a decade ago when he was first starting to record songs acoustically for his former band Black Bears Fire.

As he puts it, the song arrives with even more history than just its decade of ferment. “Changing the song from acoustic to electric was the catalyst for taking a new direction musically and for starting a new band,” McNamara concludes.

The second official single from the album, “Killing Flies,” was written and recorded in its entirety a few months prior to the album’s release.

“I wrote ‘Killing Flies’ in a flash of inspiration,” McNamara says, adding: “triggered by running into an ex-girlfriend who had taken a self-destructive path.”

“The song came together quicker than usual and ended up setting the standard for what the mixing and production of the rest of the tracks on the album would sound like,” he says reflectively.

“Killing Flies” moves even further into this pop-punk mold with a stripped-back set of arrangements and snarky vocals in the style McNamara feels natural with.

Other standout tracks on the album include “Copenhagen,” starting out with a mid-tempo and melodic guitar with the band coming all together in full force at the chorus.

Interestingly, the album’s second half – and its best half – rocks with a punk-inspired verge and urgency. It’s quite a ride for fans punk-pop in the vein of bands like the Descendents.

“Deep End” has a surfy punk-pop vibe, setting up the final two fantastic tracks, starting with the hard-hitting, guitar-frenzied and unforgettable, “Sober October,” followed by the lighter, and welcoming, final touch of “Centipedes,” saving one of the best tracks for last.

The half-hour album weaves McNamara’s dreary and poetic songwriting style with fuzzy pop-rock sensibilities of the 90’s alternative rock era driven by power chords and hooks immersed in the dense imagery of the album’s melancholic lyrics.

Summer Colds does not rely on one genre/sub-genre although if forced, they’d have to put themselves into the power-pop end of the indie rock musical spectrum. They obviously enjoy, and with good results, mixing alt. and indie rock elements with power pop and punk-pop.

After releasing two albums with his former indie band Black Bears Fire, McNamara began a new project, recruited a couple of band members and began writing and recording as Summer Colds to “bring to life a heavier sound than my previous folk-rock project.”

He has opened for a bunch of bands over the past five years, including Slow Corpse, Old Year, Calyx, The Juniper Berries, Yr Parents, and Glacierwolf. Summer Colds’ biggest influences include Weezer, White Reaper, Surfer Blood, Pup, Brand New, and Wavves.

McNamara was born in Johannesburg South Africa where his father, Stevin McNamara, was a recording engineer for Lucky Dube, Brenda Fassi, and Ladysmith Blacksmith Mambazo, and later, Bryan Adams, Tina Turner, Def Leppard, and Michael Bolton. When the Summer Colds frontman was a child, his family moved to the U.K. town of Surrey, England.

In the early 1990s, his family moved to the United States where he continued to study music and recording engineering.

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Before you agree that streaming music killed the cult band, consider the strange tales spun in song by Oakland songwriter, vocalist, and musician Richard Shirk.

Shirk’s dreamy, lo-fi, psych-rock new album, Arcadia, has one foot firmly planted in the realm of the three-minute (or less) indie single and the other foot somewhere in a used bookshop in the Midwest browsing vintage Bradbury paperbacks.

AS one listens to the album, it’s evident that Shirk has a good ear for melodies and atmospherics, relying heavily on Casio keyboards, organs and sonic dreamscapes of lo-fi, experimental, psych electro-pop. (Not an easy one to pigeon-hole, nor is it that important)

He likes to describe his sound as “like college radio at one a.m. circa 1982,” and that is quite a fitting metaphor.

He apparently has been influenced by artists like Elliott Smith and Animal Collective. His songs lean towards acoustic, dreamy, experimental electro psych or however you want to string those descriptors together.

Shirk states that one of his favorite songs from Arcadia is “How to Dance How to Waltz.”

“It’s another song that just came to me in the studio and has taken a lot of time to unravel,” he says.

In time for the Halloween/fall season, the track is “a spooky tune in waltz-time about sleepwalking, astral projection, and psychic communication,” says Shirk.

“I’m pretty sure that it takes place in the kind of town that might be in a Borges or Gabriel Garcia-Marques book or short story.”

“I see the last scene taking place in the town hall (built from stone and about a thousand years old) as everyone gathers and in a mass, a communal psychic trip they dance: in a reverie/while keeping in time/they are holding the trance aloft.’”

The song, “The Goal Keeps Moving,” was partly inspired, Shirk noteS, by a Bruce Lee quote: “A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.”

Shirk affirmS that he wrote and recorded the song in less than an hour, and during the same session as the single, “Alarms.” One could say he had a burSt of creativity that day.

“I first interpreted the song on the surface as something defeatist and shelved it for a couple of years,” he admits.

The track, he adds, is about “those times in life when everything is in flux and you think that you know what you want, but, in retrospect, you’re being pulled towards something else entirely. The goal is moving,” thus the track’s title.

The cool guitar noodle that Shirk added to the song is performed by musician Ric Wals-Smith who has performed in Japan with Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Yellow Magic Orchestra.

On the album, shirk plays guitar, keys, bass, sax flute and “spooky tubes, bow guitar, morse code, and wine glasses.” His wife performed vocals, keys, and the Glock on various tracks. She wrote the title track and performS the keyboard riff on her Casio SK-1. bassist and pianist LJ Simpson.

The title track, sporting a neat keyboard riff from a Casio SK-1, was written and performed by his wife Susan Chrsanowski.

“‘Arcadia’ is a place, a feeling, an archetype,” Shirk says. “I grew up in Iowa. Though it was near a college town, it was not near enough. I spent a lot of time stranded just a few miles from somewhere I couldn’t get to.”

The song, Shirk says, reminds him of a more simple time as a teen listening to mixtapes in his basement and “learning to play the guitar,” or he adds, “wandering around my small town at three o’clock in the morning when I couldn’t sleep.” He recalls one night of hiking six miles through soybean fields to a neighboring town.

“I navigated by dead reckoning and by walking towards a water tower all lighted up on a moonless night. I really love the refrain in the song: ‘there’s something all around you.’ I’ve always been interested in people who can read auras.”

Songs like “Prisoners at Zenda” and “Secret policemen” lack a bit of imagination and are so lo-fi that they sound like demos. We understand that is part of the intent, but for a 13-track album, every song really needs to count and stand out from the others to get and retain listeners.

The tracks like “At Esalen,” timing in at less than two minutes, with an organ riff driving it on. Apparently the two tracks under the one-minute mark are both about the second largest city in Texas, “Old Suburban Houston” and “Come on Back to Houston.”

The closing track, “Sleep Studies,” is fitting and the extended psychedelic jam is a nice touch to the end of an interesting and unique album that is quite enthralling too – especially for fans of experimental electro-pop lo-fi indie.

Shirk promotes his second album “as a collection of eclectic pop songs about escape – from small towns (‘Arcadia,’ ‘The Goal,’ ‘Secret Policemen,’) to the stars (‘Prisoners of Zenda,’ ‘Come on Back to Houston,’ ‘Old Suburban Houston’), and out from underneath the confines of conventional attitudes towards the supernatural (‘Inner Star Wars,’ ‘Tiger in the Shadows).”

He maintains, and it’s hard to disagree, that the album “rings and chimes with [Shirk’s] trademark spooky guitar tone, spectral voice, and the fingerprints of a childhood spent with pulp science-fiction and a dusty pile of records and warbling tapes by the Cars, the Ramones, and the Fall.”

With plenty of far-out themes and sounds, undeniably catchy hooks, and a persistent spooky vibe is “like a college radio chart countdown in the Twilight Zone.”