Films that are perceived to say something important habitually bloat towards (or past) the three hour mark. Return to vinyl hasn\u2019t dented interest in allowing albums to stretch and expand towards full CD capacity.<\/p>\n
On his debut album for the Dead Oceans label, Greg Mendez offers endearingly melancholy salve for anyone who is struggling to cope with too much content and incoming data: seemingly immune to tunes that pass the three minute mark, and featuring plenty of offerings that conclude in under two, Beauty Land breezes through 14 songs in barely half an hour.<\/p>\n
This could suggest an inability to develop ideas to their
\nfull fruition, and there are times here when beautiful embryonic ideas
\nare extinguished criminally early: the heartbreakingly desolate,
\nkeyboard-led miniature \u201cFrog\u201d (just \u2018\u2019please forgive me for all my
\nfaults\u2019\u2019 delivered over the loneliest melody imaginable in a voice
\ncracking with regret) being an obvious case in point. Elsewhere,
\nhowever, Beauty Land manages to make a virtue of the urgent rush to move to the next song as quickly as possible that characterises the album.<\/p>\n
Recorded almost entirely alone in Mendez\u2019s home studio, Beauty Land
\n evidences the Philadelphia-based songwriter\u2019s ability to craft
\ncompellingly layered, melodically rich miniatures with the barest of
\ntools. The video for the misleading jaunty opening track \u201cI Wanna Be
\nPretty\u201d finds Mendez venturing suburban streets in solitude in the
\ndivide between late night and very early morning, surrounded by symbols
\nof cosily stable and secure lifeforms whilst decidedly detached from
\nthem. The visuals provide a perfect shorthand for the wry yet heartfelt
\nisolation of the lyrics, which find the protagonist working a
\nlow-prospect job (to fund a stubborn music habit, maybe) and getting
\nrobbed on the way home late at night, \u2018\u2019when only people like me are
\nout\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n
The general vibe of downtrodden resignation, the
\nunobtrusively light-touch yet delicately ornate arrangements and
\nMendez\u2019s woundedly resonant near-falsetto voice can\u2019t help but bring to
\nmind Elliott Smith. Whilst songs like \u201cEverybody Wants to Be Your Friend
\n (Except Me)\u201d certainly venture close to Smith\u2019s terrain, the moments
\nwhen the songs are allowed more wiggle room to bloom and expand prove
\nthat Mendez has a musical identity of his own. For evidence, see how the
\n initially plainly strummed \u201cNo Evil\u201d sparks into a homespun symphony of
\n ricocheting vocal parts, or how \u201cSo Mean\u201d gradually stretches out into
\nan understated slice of euphorically swirling chamber pop. More of this,
\n and Beauty Land would have been absolutely essential. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Films that are perceived to say something important habitually bloat towards (or past) the three hour mark. Return…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":["post-469902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}