A great song will move me while simultaneously zapping my brain with a flood of memories or sonic touchstones, connections. It is inevitable having written about indie music for over 15 years. The spinning zoetrope of "Secret Sister" by the enchantingly artful Winter Aid, the moniker of San Francisco-based, Irish songwriter Shane Culloty, does just that flooding a sonic map in my head with locations. Some of those locations representing other bands or wonderful shows in mysterious Los Angeles lofts. Culloty and artful collaborators like producers Larry Crane (Elliott Smith, The Decemberists) and Chuck Johnson (Daniel Bachman, Claire Rousay) on this track, and the album it comes from, "Pull The Sky Inside", are able to dream weave in glorious ways filling locations on that aforementioned memory map.
Listening to "Secret Sister", the year 2012 feels dominant in my thoughts, some of the rhythmic embellishments made me thing of both Los Campesinos! and Santigold (and seeing them live), the melancholy abstractions of sound also make me think of an amalgam of artists like Wand, MGMT, RY X, Chelou (as well as Los Campesinos! and Santigold). There is a mysterious wash here that extends to the lyrics that tug at you to read between the lines and even peer beneath them.
"here are all the ways you hurt your mother
and here are all the roads you cannot take
and here are all the ways you loved your brothers
and here are all the hearts you’ll never break
well i never whispered
never kissed her
not of this earth
secret sister
when did this start
breaking your heart?
Bedside flicker
secret sister"
and here are all the ways you loved your brothers
and here are all the hearts you’ll never break
well i never whispered
never kissed her
not of this earth
secret sister
when did this start
breaking your heart?
Bedside flicker
secret sister"
The synth walls like enormous alien animals arching above cast an eerie shadow as minimalist strings produce an unsteady glimmer. The busker punk percussions along with the sideways layers craft a surreal framework for Culloty's melancholy poetry and most importantly, producers Crane and Johnson leave space between the sounds. I cannot tell you how important that space is and how often it is not present on modern music today. The space allows us to hear the ring of the bell, the uncomfortable quiet between a lyrical gut punch.
Discussing the track, Culloty stated, “'Secret Sister' came together like magic, and was 95% finished for years. I just couldn’t quite nail the energy in the mix, but Larry Crane got it immediately. The lyrics are strange to me - at first I thought it was about one thing, but as it came together over a few days, I realized it was about grief, losing family members and imagining the lives they may have lived.”
Truly dig "Secret Sister" and looking forward to dipping into the album. In a sea of sameness across pop and indie landscapes it is nice, lovey to find gems like this.
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://soundcloud.com/winteraid
https://www.instagram.com/winter.aid
https://www.facebook.com/winteraid
https://twitter.com/winteraid
https://winteraid.bandcamp.com/
https://linktr.ee/winteraid
San Francisco-based, Irish songwriter Shane Culloty, aka Winter Aid, will release his sophomore full-length album, Pull The Sky Inside, on May 17.
Pull The Sky Inside finds Culloty stretching the extremities as to what is sonically expected from a collection of Winter Aid songs, working with producers Larry Crane (Elliott Smith, The Decemberists) and Chuck Johnson (Daniel Bachman, Claire Rousay) to weave in electronic sonic strands and new percussive elements.
Having uprooted from Dublin to San Francisco with his wife, assimilating to life in a new city and country shortly led into the pandemic, which, between lockdown, elopement, and immigration form-filling, delayed new musical activities. That gestation period, though, led Shane to his most realized collection of songs.
The title-track, “Pull The Sky Inside,” was written in the midst of the pandemic, a period of struggle in a new city, far away from family. “I would spend a lot of time watching the sun go down over San Francisco,” notes Culloty. "I was struck by the idea of pulling the sunset sky indoors to preserve it and fall asleep in it. It seemed like a good solution to the darkness I was experiencing and once I finally recorded the line and finished the song, things felt a lot easier.”
Ultimately Pull The Sky Inside captures that sense of displacement: feeling a bit unmoored and out of place, but constantly trying to explore new scenery. It's a record with one foot in Culloty’s homeland back in Ireland, while very much a reflection of his new surroundings and making sense of everything going on around him.
Shane re-emerged with Winter Aid, but was never really out of mind, with the continued success of his very first single, “The Wisp Sings,” which has garnered well over 300 million streams across all platforms, and 3 billion posts on TikTok. Culloty celebrated the 10th anniversary of his EP of the same title, last Autumn, and earlier this year, released the Inner Sunset EP. During this time, Shane spoke to the Irish national broadcaster RTE about the enduring life of his most popular tune, and recently with The London Sunday Times about using the power of social media to exist as a musician outside the traditional label format.
No comments:
Post a Comment