Little Oil and the cascading folk indie affirmation of "We're Lost"

 

"just a little now on it / put my head in the light socket / it was easy to fly / after so long / but even I can't see / that I'm lost ..."

Once again, I am writing about  the wonderful busker folk punk subversions of Little Oil, the curious moniker of Mexico City born San Francisco Bay Area songwriter / multi-instrumentalist Victor Mitrani. "We're Lost" is the third track off of his sophomore album "Twelve Songs" on the Fountain Tapes Label. It is an album that I had hopeful intentions of reviewing whole but given that I always seem to have one two many side hustles and a heavy blog workload, I am content to cover what I can. 

Like all of the album tracks I have already covered in some capacity (Love Scenes, Empty Vacant Pure Devine, I Wanna Know) and previous works like Through The Trees and Big Mistake, Mitrani imbues his songs with bits of melancholia, the wistfulness of those old family photo albums with the yellow stained plastic covers with bits of absurdist humor from time to time the beneath the surprising melodies and "We're Lost" is not exception. 

The acoustic constructions push the story beginning one way and shortly becoming something else from a languid classical folk take to a sudden burst of interconnected frenetic jammy acoustic orchestrations. I can feel strong connections to nature when I listen to Mitrani's acoustic architectures, one minute like stoic match sticks forming a strong structure and the next those matches lit and falling in on themselves. At 24 seconds in the acoustic wash feels like a powerful waterfall flushing out memories. 

I have always loved distinct voices like Neil Young, like Thom Yorke, like Dylan, like Gordon Gano (Violent Femmes), like Billy Corgan and Mitrani's vocal countenance is perfectly grown for the sounds and stories that he cultivates and allows to blossom. I hope you dare to check out Little Oil and the "Twelve Songs" album.

I will leave you with an excerpt from the last Little Oil review because I like it:

"Little Oil (aka Victor Mitrani) has a tendency to stir your imagination. To transport you to other times with his slightly twisted blend of blues, punk, indie rock that is distilled into something both vintage but current. An iteration that has had me see still pictures of Violent Femmes, Townes Van Zandt, XTC, Meat Puppets and The Feelies clotheslined on a string in my brain and I like that."

-Robb Donker Curtius  

 

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM 

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0a2h3dXSuN7CDadI0woWXH

https://www.instagram.com/little_oil_music/

https://littleoil.bandcamp.com/album/twelve-songs

A San Francisco Bay Area songwriter musician that finally fulfilled his creative urge to be the totalitarian dictator of his musical world and go solo with his self titled debut album. A lover of punk, classic rock, indie, & old time country & blues, his music is a voodoo brew that sounds both familiar but fresh and original. His second album, "Twelve Songs" is set be released on March 28, 2024 on the Fountain Tapes Label.



"We're Lost", busker punk, dark folk, sophomore album, folk, folk blues, folk indie, Little Oil, San Francisco Bay area, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, "Twelve Songs" on the Fountain Tapes Label,