"I think I'm coming back"
July from Cigarettes and Milk, the musical moniker of folk singer Waldo Przekop feels like a travelers lament. Stripped bare with guitar picking and Przekop's road worn vocal wail that holds bits of sadness, angst, and bite in it's quiver. The song reveals stories of his days traveling with a friend and no destination in mind in an old car through Santa Barbara, California on the 4th of July inexplicably raining for the first time in months. Are the details in the story real? Some are and some aren't and riding the line between actuality and imaginings always make for the most intriguing songs.
I like the absolute rawness, immediacy here and Przekop's sad reflections, "and I've been driving (fucking) miles just to get here, oh so I wouldn't feel alone but I'd rather be alone" that feel steeped in desperation and survival instinct as "Przekop learns to self-actualize on the road, all the while boozing and smoking, drinking coffee and writing emotional, real-time poetry."
July is one of the songs that will end up on his upcoming 3rd album.
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:
Waldo Przekop is a lifetime traveller. He’s trekked all over the United States, even stopping to live in Hawaii for a while. In fact, the only reason he started to travel less was so he could have enough money to focus on writing and playing music.
Eventually setting in Eugene, Oregon, Przekop initially took up guitar as a way to write comedy music. Then, after discovering several famous folk artists like Damien Rice and The Tallest Man on Earth, he realized:
“Oh, shit. I actually like music,” he laughs.
After re-jigging his musical persona into Cigarettes and Milk in 2013, Przekop released two albums; now, he’s working on his third, from which brand new single July hails. It functions as an ode to Przekop’s days of traveling, detailing a time when he was on the road with a friend with no clear destination in mind, traveling in an old car through Santa Barbara on the 4th of July on the first rainy day in months.
In a way, the song flits expertly between real and beyond real, chronicling events concrete and tangible, like landscapes and fireworks overhead, and mixing them with details abstract and emotive. “July” is wildly expressive folk music framed within ragged guitar lines and lo-fi production. Traveling and self-destruction reign supreme, and his fingerstyle picking coaxes broad emotion from specific tales as Przekop learns to self-actualize on the road, all the while boozing and smoking, drinking coffee and writing emotional, real-time poetry.
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