Do you know the jazz standard, “I Fall in Love Too Easily” composed by Jule Styne with Sammy Cahn’s lyrics from 1944?
My favorite version is from Chet Baker Sings.
I fall in love too easily
I fall in love too fast
I fall in love too terribly hard
For love to ever last
My heart should be well-schooled
‘Cause I’ve been fooled in the past
But still, I fall in love so easily
I fall in love too fast
It’s too soon to know if my well-schooled ears have fallen too fast for Mandy, Indiana’s URGH—released last week—but I don’t care. I hope it lasts, it being the delight in the adventure in sounds, styles, and schools that flow through this wildly inventive record as if some great flood washed over the recording studio bringing with it all manner of things, mixing in bits and pieces of influence from disparate sources bouncing around the merry-go-round.
From the liner notes:
For Mandy, Indiana, the truth is the only way through. On their Sacred Bones debut URGH, the four-piece – vocalist Valentine Caulfield, guitarist and producer Scott Fair, synth player Simon Catling, and drummer Alex Macdougall – are a force of uncanny nature, grafting together a record that is as much a call to action as a parlay into oblivion and transcendence. Across the ten tracks, the band interpolate their own unconventional language into a mantra for self-determination and resilience, forging a template for a brighter future before it fades to black.
Love aside, I think we can all use a force of uncanny nature right about now. Listen hard.