By Toby Wilkins
On ‘Swimming,’ the penultimate track from Mark Scott’s sixth album, but second with a five-piece band, he confesses “I cried watching the TV/ It felt a lot like healing,” over an up-tempo indie rock riff. Similarly blissful instrumentals are few and far between on Villagerrr’s Carousel – although the gloomy lyrics are not – leaning on more rural, indie-country staples like acoustic & slide guitars, harmonicas and field sounds, somewhat reminiscent of Rocket-era Alex G.
Opening track, ‘Full Nelson,’ starts off incredibly gentle, with minimal percussion and deft guitar, slowly building as it progresses, climaxing with a roaring, distorted cacophony. Lyrically, the cut is charmingly meta, describing the creation of the song itself: “The sound is fine/ The guitars are blaring side by side/ You should tighten it up next time.” The slight distortion is also present on the superbly textured title track, prevented from becoming too overpowering by balanced slide guitars and laid-back acoustics.
Following this comes the album’s magnum opus, ‘Virginia.’ At a lengthy seven and a half minutes, there was a worry that the record’s sound up to this point would become stale over so long. Those concerns were quickly dashed upon hearing Scott’s tender falsetto, alongside those of guest vocalist Hotspit, over the top of a comparatively barebones instrumental, a melancholy and strangely nostalgic guitar riff making up the bulk of the song. It’s certainly the LP’s most “country” song, giving way to gorgeous harmonica lines, field sounds, and extremely faint strings in its instrumental breaks and two-minute outro. It evokes comparable emotions to The Microphones, although that may just be in Scott’s minor similarities to Phil Elverum vocally. The lyrics also provide wonderful, gripping imagery: “Every day when I brush my teeth… I spit my dreams right on down the drain.”
Now seems like a good time to highlight the sense of community that clearly went into this album, with each featured artist being brought so dearly into Villagerrr’s world that you might not have even noticed them if they weren’t credited in the song titles. New York indie artist H. Pruz on ‘Indiana’ is especially notable, largely because it’s probably the single largest contribution from a feature on the record. The whole song is a gorgeous, soft, and slow duet between Scott and Pruz, whose lovely falsetto is reminiscent of Adrianne Lenker. There are also moments that reminded me of Dijon’s Absolutely, in the sense that the listener is granted a glimpse into the mutual connection between everyone involved, most obvious at the 2:30 mark of ‘Locket,’ where a crowd can be heard chanting “Hotspit!” in the background.
Unfortunately, there are some moments where the record falters a bit. ‘Crystal Ball’ is quite sweet and is probably the only other track that comes close to the jauntiness of ‘Swimming,’ but Scott’s falsetto in the chorus is quite grating. Meanwhile, ‘Gleam’ has a very fitting title, as its guitars are certainly glimmery, but the vocals and lyrics aren’t especially gripping. Those same criticisms are true for the closer, ‘What Does It Mean?’
Regardless, Carousel is consistently endearing. From the idyllic instrumentals, Scott’s warm vocals, and his imaginative, direct songwriting, there’s a lot to love, and this record should garner them a lot of new fans.
