Big Blue - ​Daydream

Big Blue

​Daydream
​self-released; 2016

3.4 out of 5

By Ted Rogen

An improvement even if incremental is still an improvement and that is what you have with Big Blue aka Callan Walsh. The seventeen-year-old who most likely will continue to improve as he gets older and gains some more life experience is on the right track with his release Daydream.

Some of the songs on his self-titled EP Big Blue were so dismal that they were hard to appreciate. With Daydream Walsh introduces some rays of hope and levity and it sounds better than anything else he did before. Suffice it to say there is still room for a lot of improvement but some of the self-indulgent aspects of his first release are gone.

He opens with “Kool-Aid (For Sam)” which revolves around simple chord progressions and pretty catchy vocal melodies. I believe he repeats the lyric “I want to go surfing” like it's a mantra as the music slowly starts to build. The build up leads to more build up but maybe he will figure out the other part on his next release. “King of the Waves” is the next notable song which is relatively upbeat compared to his other songs and pretty catchy.

“Gone Sufrin'” is a three-minute-plus ambient piece that went on a bit too long. I feel like it would have worked better as a short thirty-second transitional piece. There simply was not enough here to keep my attention.

Walsh does a good job mixing up the vibe with more upbeat songs like “Since You Asked” compared to the more melancholy “Where Is Everybody.” He closes with the baffling “Porchlight/Outro” which is twelve-minutes long. The first four minutes are a lush, atmospheric song, which eventually fades out to silence for about six minutes before coming back into a sparse guitar and vocal piece. I’m not sure if the silence was an artistic decision but even for those who prefer the more John Cage way of thinking this didn’t make much sense. 

At the end of the day there are noticeable improvements and it’s still one of the best things to witness. Eventually, I hope to hear better production and recording quality but one step at a time.

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