"my aunt brought me to work one day exactly ten years ago. caught a bus in a quizno’s parking lot, and it took me eight hours from home"
I love all kinds of modes of songwriting from standard (formulaic) to highly unconventional. Key for me is an emotional core and the ability to seep into my head and heart. The cache of memories and sweeping emotionalism of "School Tour" by Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada's Brookside Mall is, to me, exquisitely unconventional and about as far away from 'verse verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus' as you can get, in fact there is no chorus, and technically there is no verse or bridge either.
Against what feels like a wonderfully rattling, worn upright piano and dark stirring indie rock orchestrations, Brendan MaGee (keys. vocals) delivers an emotional recounting, stories from the past in a plaintive conversational way and within the seemingly 'flash before your eyes' accounting of what might feel like, at times, random points of time told in full sentences all strung together. You also feel specific connections and moments of distinct doubt, youthful loss of innocence and the kind of loss of safety when you leave the safety of family whether it is a perfect or imperfect one. At least that is what I am feeling within the absolutely stunning soundscape or maybe projecting. Josh Steeves' drum work pushes and rides the waves of bass propulsions by Dylan Ward. Additional musical support by Emily Kennedy on cello and Mark Kleyn on viola amp up the spectrum of emotions like beautiful melancholic supportive frames for MaGee to hang his vocal countenance on, one that is as rough as it is ready to bleed.
Of their upcoming album, Brookside Mall share:
[A seven song survey of displacement, "No More Fragrant Thoughts" (out January 2024) places proper nouns in improper places. Whether bending a love song to fit an homage to television’s Forensic Files, or the surreal irony of tugging at a string of mailer daemon emails like a loose thread, the album balances a blank slate with the anxiety of reestablishing oneself in a strange city.]
-Robb Donker Curtius
lyrics:
lyrics:
my aunt brought me to work one day exactly ten years ago. caught a bus in a quizno’s parking lot, and it took me eight hours from home. she was a history professor, had paid her student to show me around. ten years later i work around the corner but she’s moved back to my old hometown. my aunt showed me point pleasant and that hydrostone bakery. my aunt took us to video difference and that dinosaur jr. show. when i was seventeen i took a school tour, then decided i was too green. last year i packed my life into a box and somehow felt the same thing. i love this city but this city loves high rises, will destroy everything in my path. pretty soon, we’ll be twilight highway driving on a journey down the 401 through the past.
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://brooksidemall.bandcamp.com/album/nnnyn-school-tour
https://www.instagram.com/brooksidemall
https://brooksidemall.tumblr.com/
A seven song survey of displacement, No More Fragrant Thoughts (out January 2024) places proper nouns in improper places. Whether bending a love song to fit an homage to television’s Forensic Files, or the surreal irony of tugging at a string of mailer daemon emails like a loose thread, the album balances a blank slate with the anxiety of reestablishing oneself in a strange city.
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