Everything has a soundtrack, movies about guns, video games, television shows about guns, incest porn, NRA ads for guns. I like to organize the music I listen to into 'seasonal soundtracks'. Autumn, Winter, Summer, the other one. Tiny Lady/Little Baby's Deep Roots is the perfect summer soundtrack, it's warm and fuzzy and oozing of garage rock with a syringe-full of folk blasted into its butt-cheek, like the soundtrack of, as the band says, “a movie made in 1978”. The sometimes melancholic songs flutter somewhere between punk and beachy pop, smothered in a distorted fondant.
If I was allowed to drive, this is the music I would blast to make pedestrians turn their heads. I know what you're thinking, nobody likes that person who drives around playing music so loud it can be heard a block away. Not this fucking time, bucko. When you drive past listening to Deep Roots, passersby will be like, wow, I don't even mind that this time, they must be pretty dope.
Not unlike your trusted author, this album is quiet but always emotional. It is the soundtrack to day-drinking alone I have always needed. The track Little Old Me is a slow, heavy, longing trip leading into Duffle Bag, a song that bleeds thoughts of waiting, longing, looking for someone; a short, romantic day-dream of sorts.
Dan Loughrin's driving drums and Scott Shield's bouncing, rhythmic guitars throughout the album will keep you tuned in, shifting around frequently and always keeping your ears on their theoretical toes. Money Shot closes off the album as a compelling instrumental overlaid by affected vocal samples driven, again, by gorgeous drums and guitar, I wish I could have this play anytime I enter a room.
Deep Roots reminds me of good times I've had in the sunshine, driving in cars a little too fast and having cigarette ash flick back from the window and hit you in the face, day-drinking, being at the beach; but it also reminds me that life can sometimes be hardcore and you better keep your damn eyes open, kid. The term “raw” is probably a cliché, but the artists really tear their chest-cavities open and bare it all for you. If that's not raw, I don't know what is. I've never cooked a steak.
Roland's Rating
5 1960's Brian Wilson's out of an Andrew WK
Dan Loughrin, the drum-mastermind from Deep Roots also plays for the band Baby Labour, they will give you some good feelings, too. Scott Shields, the big Tiny Lady, also created artwork for Baby Labour, which makes them even more worth checking out.
Roland's Links 2 Listen 2
Tiny Lady/Little Baby Bandcamp
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