"Didn’t we play in the dark age? / Carried it all too hard / Hair ice gray on your gold drum take / My sweetheart, king, destroyer..."
The dreamy amber wash of "Kid Detroit" by Chicago based experimental pop trio Desert Liminal might just push memory buttons in your brain casting images blossoming from the songs sonic seeds. While the atmospheres might lay on the edges of dream pop, at it's core, with its more organic than synth sounding piano ballad-esque take, if stripped back might sound like a 70's pop track a la Carole King and I like those kinds of bones. Sarah Jane Quillin's piano shapes and evocative vocal countenance casts out lyrics that might be far more artfully abstract though than your average 70's pop star befitting of the dreamy synth orchestrations, Mallory Linehan's harmonies and violin / guitar embellishments and Rob Logan's drumming and added synth shapes.
"Didn’t we play in the dark age?
Carried it all too hard
Hair ice gray on your gold drum take
My sweetheart, king, destroyer
Feelin sick over the way I wrote you off
That flat picture’s mine to draw
Collared by the fakes and the parlor pranks
Lookin for somebody to write it over
Somebody to write, somebody to write
Hair ice gray on your gold drum take
My sweetheart, king, destroyer
Feelin sick over the way I wrote you off
That flat picture’s mine to draw
Collared by the fakes and the parlor pranks
Lookin for somebody to write it over
Somebody to write, somebody to write
Somebody to write, somebody to write"
The wistfulness here feels filmic, makes you see things, maybe reflecting on your own way of navigating through your life at past places or time, maybe missing them either because they were easier or they were harder and made you tougher going through them.
-Robb Donker Curtius
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiejxFuHWc9hqYAZDvjvu3g
https://desertliminal.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/desertliminal
https://www.facebook.com/desertliminal
Desert Liminal is an experimental pop trio and fixture in the deep field of Chicago independent music. Combining elements of dream pop and shoegaze, the group's nontraditional song structures center dream-like poetry and vocal harmony within a cloud of analog synth textures and layered, swirling violin loops. Thoughtfully-constructed walls of sound wash over driving drum grooves as the trio's synergy results in signature sonic poems greater than the sum of their parts.
Desert Liminal's 2021 vinyl debut on Whited Sepulchre Records sold out its pressing, while the band toured the US and Europe, performing on bills with notable genre-adjacent acts like DEHD, Midwife, Deserta, and Laraaji.
Black Ocean releases October 18, 2024 on Whited Sepulchre.
LINER NOTES (bracketed) about "Kid Detroit":
[Quillin’s songs are commonly love letters to friends, reflections of shared moments both idyllic and hellish. This in fact extends to her bandmates themselves. “Kid Detroit” is written for Desert Liminal drummer (and Detroit native) Rob Logan, who has expanded his longtime contribution to include synth textures and production on the new record. It details, with stirring nostalgia, a touring experience half a decade ago when Quillin and Logan were both thrashed by heartbreak and loss.]
[“It's funny to miss the times when you were younger and a total wreck,” Quillin says. But this is exactly Desert Liminal’s strength. The melody is bittersweet, catchy and touching and the lyrics are tender and poetic descriptions of this miserable time, abstracted and turned into something frankly pretty. “Black ocean, back I go,” Quillin sings over and over during the chorus. Desert Liminal succeeds in alchemizing these bleak moments into something beautiful and distant, bigger than “us,” a beautiful landscape.]
[“It's funny to miss the times when you were younger and a total wreck,” Quillin says. But this is exactly Desert Liminal’s strength. The melody is bittersweet, catchy and touching and the lyrics are tender and poetic descriptions of this miserable time, abstracted and turned into something frankly pretty. “Black ocean, back I go,” Quillin sings over and over during the chorus. Desert Liminal succeeds in alchemizing these bleak moments into something beautiful and distant, bigger than “us,” a beautiful landscape.]
I am really digging "Kid Detroit". It is one of those kinds of songs that after you enjoy and become entranced in their story, you can play it on repeat as a meditation, a soundscape that inspires deep thoughts of your own. The song is track 4 from Desert Liminal's upcoming album "Black Ocean" dropping on October 18th, 2024 on Whited Sepulchre.
"Black ocean
Back I go
Black ocean
Back I go
Long gone, Kid Detroit
Back I go
Black ocean
Back I go
Long gone, Kid Detroit
My mind will, won’t turn over
Long gone, Kid Detroit
My mind will, won’t turn over"
Long gone, Kid Detroit
My mind will, won’t turn over"
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiejxFuHWc9hqYAZDvjvu3g
https://desertliminal.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/desertliminal
https://www.facebook.com/desertliminal
Desert Liminal is an experimental pop trio and fixture in the deep field of Chicago independent music. Combining elements of dream pop and shoegaze, the group's nontraditional song structures center dream-like poetry and vocal harmony within a cloud of analog synth textures and layered, swirling violin loops. Thoughtfully-constructed walls of sound wash over driving drum grooves as the trio's synergy results in signature sonic poems greater than the sum of their parts.
Desert Liminal's 2021 vinyl debut on Whited Sepulchre Records sold out its pressing, while the band toured the US and Europe, performing on bills with notable genre-adjacent acts like DEHD, Midwife, Deserta, and Laraaji.
Black Ocean releases October 18, 2024 on Whited Sepulchre.
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