"This one’s a poem about the unemployed / You’ve heard it since your dad lost his job back in ’99 / It’s a worth, once you’re stripped of, that cuts deep / A reminder that you’re 10 steps from the street..."
The cold hard sober face slap of "Marching In A Field Of Wheat" by La Bonte, the moniker of Los Angeles based artist, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist Garrett La Bonte, leans into you, pushing you in a corner of thoughtful reflections. Though the cadence is easy, the picking guitar measured providing a gentle swing, the emotional urgency digs into you on account of La Bonte's vocal countenance, part wail, part melancholia and maybe even part desperation. After awhile the song starts to sound like a sweat inducing nightmare of sorts.
"This one’s a poem about the unemployed
You’ve heard it since your dad lost his job back in ’99
It’s a worth, once you’re stripped of, that cuts deep
A reminder that you’re 10 steps from the street
You leave your clothes out for the morning
So you can have some sort of purpose for the night
Everything distracts you, you’re running behind
But here’s a tri-fold on how to live your life"
You’ve heard it since your dad lost his job back in ’99
It’s a worth, once you’re stripped of, that cuts deep
A reminder that you’re 10 steps from the street
You leave your clothes out for the morning
So you can have some sort of purpose for the night
Everything distracts you, you’re running behind
But here’s a tri-fold on how to live your life"
Constructed with ebbs and flows of feelings from pain to resolve, the song spins a tale (maybe) of spinning out of control or maybe of empowered rage and at one point it sounds like a Church organ screams at God too. The chorus centers on a dream, a mysterious one, full of tension, maybe full of hate, maybe full of ultimate pain or maybe of ultimate survival, maybe inspired by a Biblical parable or maybe not. Not knowing is the kind of thing that might keep one up at night.
Thank god for rhyme or reason
I thank god for rhyme or reason
Why thank god for rhyme or reason
I thank god for rhyme or reason
Thank god
LINER NOTES Excerpt (bracketed) about La Bonte's new EP "Economy Play" dropping on Friday, July 19th, 2024 via Anxiety Blanket Records.
[Los Angeles-based artist La Bonte is releasing a follow-up to 2022's "Grist For The Mill" with the new "Economy Play" EP on Friday, July 19th, 2024 via Anxiety Blanket Records. Remaining an independent musician for any prolonged period of time is bound inflict some emotional distress on an artist’s psyche. In the pixelated world of algorithms and content saturation, it becomes financially self-destructive to try and keep up with the demands of consistently creating music, especially if an artist wants to maintain a certain level of quality in their recordings. This is what Garrett La Bonte has been reckoning with on his newest EP “Economy Play.” La Bonte, as he is known on-stage, has been rooted in the indie music scene of Los Angeles for years now. His music evokes acts such as The American Analog Set and Songs: Ohia without ever losing a grip on the integral pieces that make his music unique. With “Economy Play,” La Bonte dives further into his fascination with creating songs that balance heavy droning rhythms alongside delicate, meditative melodies. The bass-thumping toms, the rumbling distorted guitar, the head bobbing jams all stem from an emotional core that elicits the feeling of a storm that just passed, or a storm just about to arrive. “Economy Play” is the sonic manifestation of the phrase “less is more.” Remaining creatively motivated in times of financial insecurity exhausts independent musicians everywhere. The practical world of rent payments, loan debts, and unforeseen job lay-offs weigh down and shrink the space and time available for creative efforts. La Bonte is no stranger to this weight, but still feeling the drive to create something new forced him to narrow his lens.]
These days being a musical artist can feel like a suicide jump. Spotify exploits the situation that they helped in part to create. It is only smart to become an artist if not being one will literally harm you from a mental health standpoint. If you need to be one then you must be one, right (?) but don't, don't ever expect it will pay your bills though I truly hope it will. Do it because you must.
Dig this song.
-Robb Donker Curtius
https://thelabontebandis.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/thelabontebandis
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/la-bonte/1571205036
https://www.facebook.com/thelabontebandis
https://www.thelabontebandis.com/
La Bonte is the personal project of Garrett La Bonte, a Southern California-based songwriter and musician that has been immersed in the local indie and punk scenes for over 15 years. After a decade of playing in several bands and projects, Garrett began in 2015 to explore a quieter, more personal spectrum of music that he had not fully explored previously. Mixing influences from his childhood of down-tempo acts of Kranky and Up Records with contemporary songwriters of Saddle Creek and Secretly Canadian. Combining his love for whisper-quiet dynamics with slow-burning instrumentation, La Bonte was created as a vehicle to make sense of the then and now.
La Bonte is a deeply personal project. As Don’t Let This Define Me served as opening statement on articulating loneliness and isolation from a complicated past, Grist For The Mill continues that meditation and self-reflection. While two of the tracks were recorded during the same sessions as Don’t Let This Define Me, the remainder of the EP was recorded during deep moments of physical and emotional solitude in 2020 and 2021. Grist For The Mill contains three of La Bonte’s strongest examples of his vulnerable sound to date, and it also features two reinterpreted versions of songs by LA songwriter Gracie Gray and the late great Townes Van Zandt.
While the project may be seen as only one person, La Bonte is far from being a solo effort. Grist For The Mill was recorded by both Colin Knight of Paradise Records and by La Bonte at his home in Los Angeles. The EP features members of Media Jeweler, Sonoda, Chase Petra, Darto, and Layman.
La Bonte, L.A. artist Garrett La Bonte, singer songwriter multi-instrumentalist, new EP "Economy Play", indie rock, folk, Anxiety Blanket Records, "Marching In A Field Of Wheat" (Official Video),
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://thelabontebandis.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/thelabontebandis
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/la-bonte/1571205036
https://www.facebook.com/thelabontebandis
https://www.thelabontebandis.com/
La Bonte is the personal project of Garrett La Bonte, a Southern California-based songwriter and musician that has been immersed in the local indie and punk scenes for over 15 years. After a decade of playing in several bands and projects, Garrett began in 2015 to explore a quieter, more personal spectrum of music that he had not fully explored previously. Mixing influences from his childhood of down-tempo acts of Kranky and Up Records with contemporary songwriters of Saddle Creek and Secretly Canadian. Combining his love for whisper-quiet dynamics with slow-burning instrumentation, La Bonte was created as a vehicle to make sense of the then and now.
La Bonte is a deeply personal project. As Don’t Let This Define Me served as opening statement on articulating loneliness and isolation from a complicated past, Grist For The Mill continues that meditation and self-reflection. While two of the tracks were recorded during the same sessions as Don’t Let This Define Me, the remainder of the EP was recorded during deep moments of physical and emotional solitude in 2020 and 2021. Grist For The Mill contains three of La Bonte’s strongest examples of his vulnerable sound to date, and it also features two reinterpreted versions of songs by LA songwriter Gracie Gray and the late great Townes Van Zandt.
While the project may be seen as only one person, La Bonte is far from being a solo effort. Grist For The Mill was recorded by both Colin Knight of Paradise Records and by La Bonte at his home in Los Angeles. The EP features members of Media Jeweler, Sonoda, Chase Petra, Darto, and Layman.
La Bonte, L.A. artist Garrett La Bonte, singer songwriter multi-instrumentalist, new EP "Economy Play", indie rock, folk, Anxiety Blanket Records, "Marching In A Field Of Wheat" (Official Video),
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