Difficult music can be a blessing. Some days, many days, the last thing I want to hear coming out of my hifi is the familiar.
Still House Plants is Finlay Clark on guitar, Jess Hickie-Kallenbach on vocals, and David Kennedy on drums. That’s it, a kinda atypical trio. I’ll blame my lack of musical knowledge/depth for the fact that I can’t rattle off a bunch of similar bands, so I’m not saying Still House Plants sprung from unplowed fields, just that my frame of references come up short. At times Linda Sharrock came to mind from Sonny Sharrock’s Black Woman (featuring Milford graves!!) and even little whiffs of the Minutemen, but I’m clearly grasping at shards.
From the liner notes:
When able to finally record, production allowed layers, gave elasticity, a chance to fully stretch. Playing with length and connections, the band brought in analogue techniques – a Lesley cabinet on ‘Headlight’, sidechaining the snare with the guitar, pushing vocals through cheap DJ software – each process an attempt to bring one instrument closer to another, to give bass, body, backup.
‘If I don’t make it, I love u’ seeks beauty, holds feeling maximum and builds surety with its sound. The most generous SHP record to date, the music is wide open, demands less. Play it again, it will come clear.
I’ll share that my first attempt at a listen to If I don’t make it, I love u, released on bison earlier this month, ended quickly because I wasn’t ready, at that moment, to jump aboard a train destination unknown. So I re-entered some days later, found a comfy seat—or maybe I was just more relaxed—and took the full ride, something I’ve done a number of times since.
If I don’t make it, I love u keeps getting better (of course that’s not the case but we like to tell ourselves it is).
