"in Julian's world / everything is unfurled / or tossed around and / twirled / our only complaint / our only constraint / so little that it's / lying in the palm of my hand / will it last / this little craft / if we are to be / beholden..."
The beautifully whimsical "Journeying with Julian", the opening track from Miserable chillers' latest collection "Great American Turn Off" released just yesterday (June 20th, 2024), moves like a bedroom waltz and feels saturated in the faded Polaroid memories of days gone by. The first time I listened I couldn't help but think of 70's movies and film makers whose revival style of that period somehow feels, merely by the presences of that era, more poignant. I also thought about Wes Anderson's musical touchstones from The Royal Tenenbaums, Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh's "Sparkplug Minuet", and his use of Nico and The Velvet Underground.
Miserable chillers is the project of Brooklyn singer songwriter, multi-instrumentalist Miguel Gallego with talented collaborators along the way. He shares :
[Inspired by a book on Julian of Norwich I purchased at a book sale of Tom Verlaine's collection. I opened it to a bookmark left in it and the words started there. Sung by Kate Ehrenberg]
AND about the new collection of songs, he posted (yesterday):
[“Great American Turn Off,” a new collection of chillers tracks is out today, and available for streaming on YouTube and download on my website. it compiled 14 tracks from the past six or so years that I finished up this spring. Many special guests on this one including @tompeepington @sun.kin.music @muted_glow @jaredyeeee @mmmadstein @mysteriousphog @dylanballiett and @flowingisthesecret
I have written about Miserable chillers before and I am always struck at the artistic depth, the emotional reservoir that Miguel Gallego navigates through. I wouldn't call him an old soul but I might be thinking it. On "Journeying with Julian", I love his use of Kate Ehrenberg as the vocal presence, she brings a natural raw effervescence to the song. I absolutely adore the musical breaks and how the electric guitar plucks and lead embellishments integrate against and with the piano. To me, it has a sort of measured piano recital quality. Composed in a gentle way, adding to the familial feel or in the least, the communal feel that we all long for. Maybe something that, at times feels like a relic from the past.
By the way, you can download "Great American Turn Off" here: https://miguelgallego.net/gato/
AND stream here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYevA1Ejae0
Be kind to one another.
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://open.spotify.com/artist/0O3JVDGwEC07JYbnwLfpo8
https://soundcloud.com/miserable_chillers
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz27c6IZxHzkcL7yEz29PwA
https://miserablechillers.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/miserablechillers/
https://www.instagram.com/miserable_chillers/
Miserable chillers
Brooklyn, New York
adult contemporary and adult alternative music
“I think of myself as a late bloomer, a lot of obvious things have only recently started to appear obvious to me,” says Miguel Gallego reflecting on intuition and his creative practice. Currently based in Brooklyn, New York, Gallego grew up in suburban New Jersey to parents from Mexicali, in Baja California. It was in these early days in New Jersey that Gallego formed an important, slightly enchanted relationship with nature, which lent itself to both obvious and not so obvious realizations about the world around him. Gallego cites vivid childhood memories of days living beside a “bizarrely bucolic” creek straddled by woods in suburban New Jersey and the palpable effect it had on his definition and perception of nature. He learned years after moving that what he thought was an escape to a world untarnished by human involvement was in fact man-made, an artifact of a previous era with a very intentional design.
Over the past six years, Miserable chillers has shifted from a bummer pop act grounded by indie rock guitars to what can now be best described as literary baroque pop. Audience of Summer is not only the product of afternoons spent listening to Prefab Sprout, Clube Da Esquina, and Kate Bush, but also an amalgam of imagination, myth, and deep contemplation. Pulling heavily from Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Audience of Summer is deliciously esoteric, and brilliantly arranged.
-- Sophie Kemp
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