"he took me down to the river, held my head under water..."
Oddly or maybe not so oddly at all, I thought of Filmmaker Benh Zeitlin, of Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, of Smog and of the Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse collaborations when listening to "Savior || Death", the ninth track of The Color Study's latest album "Future Past Present Tense". Now when I say I thought of those amazing artists I don't mean it in some amalgamic way but more so because of the creative choices those artists make and the sheer depth of their emotional draw inward.
I fucking love "Savior || Death" not merely sonically but the way the percolating acoustic and electric lines feel like they are pushing me off center, the ramble of the beats, the dark gospel-esque moves and, obviously, Scott Oliphant's amazingly moving vocal countenance. He has a way of telling his stories in such an immediate way. The funning thing is that this song has some ambient sort of social cues that make it feel Polaroid scratched or even older but Scott's retelling feels NOW because his bloodletting while maybe feeling from some other realm has the urgency of the present. You can feel the swirling emotionality around you, impinging on you, giving you a stomach ache, driving concern under your skin and pounding on the wall.
All the creative contributors here absolutely kill in what they do. The Color Study is lead by Scott Oliphant, and features Melissa Atillo on keys and vocals, Matt Jackson on bass, Miguel Mendoza on horns, Andy Jacobs on drums and vocals and Steve Reinhardt on lead guitar.
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:
https://www.facebook.com/thecolorstudy/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/43pHPqy4kvpNAjjT98dYHE
Scott Oliphant has a lot of big thoughts and ideas in his head. His extensive conceptual process produces narrative tracks that speak earnestly, especially within the songs he makes as The Color Study. It was a trend he started with the project’s self-titled debut, and it’s one he’s continuing with their upcoming album Future-Past-Present Tense.
While the band’s eponymous debut record was consciously mired by the sadness of a relationship lost, Future-Past-Present Tense takes a turn for the more heady and existentially philosophical, though still in some aspect or another touching on the impact interpersonal relationships can leave. He began pondering the dynamics of these connections - how even the slightest interactions have the potential to change the course of one’s life, how they’ll live and how they may, or may not, experience love in life. That’s how the album title itself came to be, serving as a mini grammatical roadmap for how an interaction that hasn’t even come to be yet could affect who you are in the present, and how you’ll remember your past.
The record’s title track is most indicative of these sentiments, zeroing in on how interconnectedness can bring chaos into one's life. Slow acoustics and horns steadily build up into an explosion of sound, much like reaching the a-ha moment of the impression a person or situation has made on you. “How many times have we met?/ How many lines are running parallel and never connect?” Oliphant lyrically questions mere seconds into the song. Everyone’s answers to these will be different, but the resonance is the same - whether or not you believe in fate, destiny or serendipity, you never know who or what might change your life.
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