First Look: Adam and Darcie -

10.23.2009

First Look: Adam and Darcie – “California Trail”

With a title like California Trail, you’d expect more Beach Boys in Adam and Darcie‘s sophomore album, but with autumn in full swing in L.A., I’m glad they went in a less sunny direction. The album has the chilly Pacific Northwest charm of my beloved Softies (Darcie’s voice, wonderfully, bears a passing resemblance to Rose Melberg’s) with the occasional ray of chamber-pop light. “The Fox, The Hare and Doe” starts things with a shy acoustic strum, while later tracks such as “I Need To Let Go of What I Won’t Miss” stop shoe-gazing and start smiling with enveloping harmonies and diamond-cut hooks. All in all, a gem of a record — wherever it’s from.

Adam and Darcie – “Hands/Mind”: mp3
Adam and Darcie – “National Forest”: mp3

(California Trail is out now)

This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under 2009. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Keith Berger

Hiya! Thanks for putting these tracks up (and for all the others through the years). This is the perfect way to end my day... shimmering pop wrapped in heavenly harmonies.

Peace,
Keith

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Gold Soundz
Can’t argue with that. Strong finish, dudes.
09/03/10
More P4k list commentary
Bummed that on a list of a lot of only semi-obvious picks from artists with bigger, even better songs, Elliott Smith got stuck with “Needle in the Hay,” the song that most plays into the Elliott Smith Was Sad And Took Drugs And Sang About Himself Narrative, when, like Joni Mitchell or Neil Young or his heroes in Big Star and the Beatles, his “confessionalism” was as much storytelling and character study as it ever was diary-page.

Despite “Miss Misery,” it is admittedly the song I think he’s best known for; it is a great and powerful song, but he was and remains so much more than that.

Also, this: “Posthumously parsing Elliott Smith songs— for foreshadowing, for anything— feels like something of a fool’s errand in 2010.”

I don’t know, Amanda, does that mean David Foster Wallace’s books have no meaning now? Or the poems of, like, Samuel Coleridge? What an awfully slippery slope to look for an angle on.

Also really glad “1979” charted so high, song rules, the Pumpkins rule(d), suck it, cred.
09/03/10
The guitars on the No Age album
They sound like volcanoes erupting or meteors killing dinosaurs

It’s amazing that there are songs here at all
09/03/10

First Look: Adam and Darcie – “California Trail”

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Gold Soundz

More P4k list commentary

The guitars on the No Age album