Music Moots with Malaphor ("When Your Lover Has Gone" by Russ Garcia Orchestra)
We are extremely back with Music Moots™, the blogseries where I ask someone to recommend me a song they like, and then I listen to the song and then write a little about it.
Today we have Malaphor! It's the Oakland, CA-based project of Brendan Casey and Patrick Webb who just put out their first-ever 7" (the group is filled out here with Spencer Owings on guitar/vocals, and Cody Putman on sax). On one side is "Frogs In The Pot," a piano-forward throwdown that would get my ass out of my seat at the New Orleans Jazz Fest. (Do they let you bring your own chairs in there? I feel like it's a chair fest.) And the UNDULATIONS of the keys on "In The Waves" suggest maritime bliss, but there's a subtly sinister edge to it...I am drawing a mental picture of well-dressed cruise passengers slow-dancing as their boat drifts into the Bermuda Triangle.
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Brendan says they're inspired by everything from Dr. John to Bowie to Éthiopiques jazz, and a quick peek at Malaphor's Instagram shows them gigging enthusiastically about town. Any band that sounds like they're playing the keyboards while standing up, I support.
And they gave me a music recommendation! Brendan recommended "When Your Lover Has Gone" by Russ Garcia Orchestra. "It to me sounds like a foggy hazy dream, which is coincidentally what I want a lot of the Malaphor songs to sound like," he wrote. "I've gotten really into vocal harmony the past few years and especially love the vocal work on this track, notably that insane high vocal that almost sounds like a theremin. Was also very cool to find out that Russ Garcia was from Oakland, much like Malaphor."
WHOA this one made me feel weird! Which is good! This is another "ghosts who do not know they are ghosts, dancing on a cruise ship" type song for sure. This song was released in 1958, and it looks like there are other renditions of it with vocals by Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday, but this version just has a spectral backing choir and a single "when your lover has gone" sang near the end. My regular brain understands this to be a moody, melancholy, languorous kind of song to put on and and mope /yearn while drinking some kind of midcentury cocktail. My lizard brain actually gets The Fear! Why??
As a sensitive plant, I'm susceptible to feelings of dread and apprehension. Often these feelings come from a combination of visuals and music; one example is my fear of the THX Deep Note, which I've written about before, and another is the fact that I absolutely need to stop movies before the final bits of the credits appear—production logos, union acknowledgements, sometimes the brand of cameras and film they used, and god fuckin' forbid I see a THE END title—because something about seeing those elements, especially if the score or a song is still running, makes me feel impossibly weird inside. I think that particular emotional squidge comes from being a kid at sleepovers, watching movies on VHS, and knowing that when those credits wrapped up and the tape ka-chunked, it was time for bed. Darkness in a less familiar house, the unpredictable presence of others, unknown breakfast options in the morning...sleepovers are so damn vulnerable...
Writing this out, it feels like I'm maybe extra-emotional about beginnings and endings. Makes sense, whom among us, etc. "When Your Lover Has Gone" sounds like an ending, given the title, but the song's end does NOT feel like an ending. That last little chromatic (?) run from the chorus is final enough, but then there are a few extra notes from the vibraphone (?) that make it sound unfinished after all. It opens the book you thought was closed, it's a hand tapping you on the shoulder after you said goodbye. And that freaks me out. In a good way! To quote Jim Carrey at the end of The Grinch (2002)..."I'm.....feeeling????"
Great stuff. Maybe I'll listen to the whole record today and keep feeling things...
Thanks Malaphor! Check out that Frogs In The Pot b/w In The Waves 7" right here on Bandcamp.
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