Forget perfection, just drop the music and leave it raw.
I enjoy the imperfections of diy recordings, it’s a character and a style all its own. Sometimes musicians can purse making a song completely perfect for years. But what is perfect? It’s all subjective, and often this pursuit of perfection can leave an artist stranded, and keep them from just releasing their music. Maybe that’s what happened with these two musicians, I don’t know, but I was sitting with a friend trying to encourage them to just drop their music and let it live. If they were worried about no one ever listening to it, it’s already doing that. And if they were worried about no one liking it, well it’s already doing that too because people have to hear it to be able to like it, so by default no one likes it. Am I making sense here? I don’t know, LOL!
Anyway, this is not a professional blog, okay. Here is what I do know….I’ve learned over the years that I enjoy musicians with interesting vocals and guitar parts. When I think of vocals, I don’t just think about interesting lyrics, but more so unique tones. And for guitar parts, I am not a big fan of leads. I think leads are very hard to do and hard to do them tastefully. Leads can get out of hand so to speak, LOL! Either that or I just suck at leads, but whatever, haha. For guitar I love strange chords, odd time signatures, and lots of arpeggios.
These two new releases fit the bill for my likes, I don’t know about you, but you might like these albums too. They come from two Sacramento musicians who have been in the scene for a while, but “disappeared” for sometime until they just recently felt like dropping some music out of thin air. The two albums are ‘Maybe I was’ by Evilwatchme, and ‘Is this Abyss?’ by Khris.
Evilwatchme is Dillon Christensen who used to play in a local band called Der Spazm (who after 12 yrs are reuniting for a reunion gig, but that’s another story). Dillon is not just a fabulous guitarist, but also a talented songwriter and it shows on his new album. But here is how he describes the album in his own words “…It’s real and it’s loud and strangely lo-fi. You’re listening to 12+ years of trickwiffery.”, and I have to agree, in a very good way! It’s full of fun melody’s, different tunings, fuzz and delays. It even opens with a creepy and eerie track that leaves you wondering what this is all about. Did he go crazy or something (that’s an inside joke), but then it goes silent, and the next track burst’s open with some lovely chords on ‘Regal Ladies of Leasuire’ and suddenly you’re off on this fantastic convertible car adventure with wind blowing in your hair and it gives you the tingles because you feel like you said fuck it to work and went on a drive down the California Hwy 1. Sounds fun right!? The music definitely has Sonic Youth and Diiv vibes. Each song is full of little surprises in the song structure, they are colorful, driving and playful. The stand out tracks on this album included ‘Fuchsia’, ‘You came to me’, and my favorite ‘Ripped’, a track dropped right in the middle of this 15 song album that has no business being this good, but it is. It’s a minimal track that is just guitar and vocals. It feels like an emotional song, a song sung by someone who has persevered through the thickness of life. The vocals are soft and airy, it’s a delicate song that leaves you in a lovely hazy daydream.
’Maybe I was’ is a fabulous Lo-if jam for sitting in the grass in a park and not giving a F about what’s going on around you. Go give it listen and follow him on Instagram at Evilwatchme.
Listen to ‘Maybe I was’ on bandcamp: https://evilwatchme.bandcamp.com/album/maybe-i-was
Next, we have Khris. Khris last released music under ‘Mindflowers’ in 2013 and 2015. Mindflowers was a stand out local band that wasn’t around for very long, but thankfully left us with some fabulous albums to listen to (last I checked you can still find it on Bandcamp here: https://mindflowers1.bandcamp.com/album/3). So, needless to say, I was stoked to see Khris drop this album in full. Before slapping it up on bandcamp he had only been dropping clips of songs on Instagram making it difficult to jam out to on the regular. So thank you for this Khris!
You’re defiantly in for a pleasant surprise when you give his new album called ‘Is This Abyss?’ a spin. I know we can all be a little timid when it comes to unknown local musicians. But I PROMISE this is a wonderful 7 track album full of Khris’s amazingly tasty song structures and song lyrics. Khris has that vocal element that I really enjoy too. His vocals are certainly unique , with so much good character and the songs are rich with his knack for lyrics. In his song ‘Deception’ he writes “..I can only be who I am not who you want me to be’, which perfectly embodies the vulnerability of this album. My favorite track is ‘Blind’, It opens up with a wonderfully light intro including background keys and a simple guitar, and then the drums drop and I loose it! So much feels! The album closes with ‘Trust Issues’ , a very catchy song that makes me bounce in my seat and then grounds me and then sends me floating, and then it grounds me again because I know its a deep and meaningful song…probably cause we all got trust issues and he just kind of lays it out there for us all to see, LOL! It’s deep Khris, its deep and its great!
’Is This Abyss’ sounds like a person coming out from under the rocks and going for a walk to think in the sun. It also sounds like someone who is getting over some shit and trying to move on, I think we can all relate to that, Right? Go give this one a listen, please!
Listen to ‘Is This Abyss’ on bandcamp now: https://khris2.bandcamp.com/album/is-this-abyss
Congratulations to theses two artists for going out on a limb and dropping their music after a long break from the scene. They did a phenomenal job!
This is what I love about the Sacramento music scene, it’s eclectic, and when you really take the time to experience it you find some gems like these two artists. I know there is so much more out there, but I am just one person and I try to share what I can when the moment presents itself…this was a moment that I could not resist.
Until next time! Cheers!
BONUS MUSIC VIDEO:
Sac.Indie.Music 