Canadians Ben McGrath and Brooke Gallup started a long-distance musical relationship to create Atlatl and their eponymous debut EP Atlatl. How long is long-distance? About 2500km. For our American readers, that’s over 1500mi. McGrath is up in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and Gallup is down in Vancouver. To get started, they met for a few in-person writing sessions. After that, Atlatl was created through the magic of remote recording and file-sharing.
The result is five tracks of what they describe as “lush indie pop.” Yes, but it’s more than that, as they touch a number of various styles over the fifteen minutes of music. The opener “Everywhere We Go” has a ‘60s garage-rock feel to it with its chorus-drenched open-string guitar chords and single-note electric leads. “Forest Fire Haze” uses synths and a flanged guitar to evoke its title. The thunder in “Yukon Thunder” comes from the tom-tom pattern and layered-in congas, taking a Latin-fusion turn. Atlatl gives us a bit of reggae on “I Love You, But…” with shades of English Beat, David Bowie and the Police (and a cool electric-sitar-like synth line). It’s a nice variety, generally held together well with the layered vocals. Lyrically, they write about everyday life and happenings in their homes, such as the vastness of northern Canada (“Yukon Thunder”) and the seemingly annual forest fires (“Forest Fire Haze”). “Time Please” takes a page from Cat Stevens’ “Cat’s In The Cradle:” “A kid of each leg as I’m trying to leave / I’m late for work again / We’ll play when I get home.” Although he’s more in touch than the father a half-century earlier, their themes are readily relatable. There’s a lot going on in these tracks, as McGrath and Gallup have layered on various interesting parts as they file-shared. That makes mixing and mastering a challenge, and Atlatl falls short a bit in that department. Certain parts were overwhelmed (for instance, the vocal hook in “I Love You, But…”), and the drums often sounded too soft and narrow in the mix (except on “I Love You, But…” where they blow everything away). An outside set of ears might help with these technical issues. I’d love to hear these songs re-mixed and re-mastered. That said, it’s pretty amazing what this long-distance collaboration has been able to produce. I hope they will continue to work together to generate more of these interesting, well-written tracks.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Critique/insightWe are dedicated to informing the public about the different types of independent music that is available for your listening pleasure as well as giving the artist a professional critique from a seasoned music geek. We critique a wide variety of niche genres like experimental, IDM, electronic, ambient, shoegaze and much more.
Are you one of our faithful visitors who enjoys our website? Like us on Facebook
Archives
May 2024
|