By chance, choices and artistic tendencies, Strange Bertie His songs work on his second studio album, “Farm to Table,” delighting and constantly questioning.
His father belonged to the Air Force and often worked abroad. BarteesLeon Cox Jr. was born in England and lived in Greenland and Germany before his family settled in Mustang, Oklahoma. He sang with his mother in the church choir. He also played opera and began making music in his homemade studio when he was a teenager.He started releasing songs at SoundCloud 10 years agoAnd he played in the Washington, DC hardcore band and self-proclaimed “post-hardcore” Brooklyn band Stay Inside.
Instead of following the path to stereotypical hip-hop and R & B for black musicians, he uses both, but now 33-year-old Strange finds his voice in indie rock, stirs his guitar, and radio. Destabilized the synthesizer of a band like TV. Bloc Party, Radiohead, The Cure. Most of the tracks on his debut EP as Bartees Strange “Goodbye to Pretty Boy” Just in March 2020, when the pandemic restrictions began, it was a moody, volatile, radically reworked version of the long-standing indie rock band National.
Building an indie rock career is an unknown self-conscious path at its best, navigating revelations and obfuscation, rawness and craftsmanship, instincts and commercial purposes. “I was able to hurt Bankroll,” Strange sang. “By taxi” With his debut album “Live Forever” released in October 2020. Although not tentative, “Live Forever” introduced Strange to all of his diversity. He built a sprinting locker (“Baby boomer generation”) And pulsating electronic beats (“Flagey God”); He investigated longing and anger, confessions and inventions. “I can’t say anything to you because I’m making a living now,” he sang in “Mustang,” named after his longtime hometown.
The pandemic has delayed the tour, which is the usual next step for indie rockers. However, by the time the concert resumed, “Live Forever” had been accepted by listeners and fellow musicians. Strange played Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, Courtney Barnett, and National’s opening slots.He recorded an ardent band performance released in 2021 “Live at Studio 4”He made remixes and guest appearances with Bridgers. Illuminati Hotties others.
The “Farm to Table” reflects all the conflicting feelings of personal success in a dire time. “There is a reason why the heart is heavy / I thought it was broken last year.” When the album starts, Strange sings with “Heavy Heart”. However, music evolves from mourning to gallop, and as Strange glances at the whirlwind year, the guitar peels off and piles up. Travel, loneliness, someone’s death, romance, growth: “One night I feel like my father / I’m in a hurry” He sings, worries but hurries forward.
His past is approaching “Tours” When Strange chooses an acoustic guitar and juxtaposes fragmented childhood memories of military posts and family separation — “Where is Kuwait? Is it in America?” — His own life Take a trip. He is not overly complaining.of “Cosain” He flaunts and marvels at his promotion career and checks the names of his touring companions, but he is also worried about his own growing expectations. The track begins with a breathy synthesizer and mock casual rap, collecting echoing guitars and heavier beats until Strange belts “hungry / not enough as usual!”.
The most moving song on the album is “Hold the Line” George Floyd’s Elegy recorded in October 2020. “What happened to that big old smiling man / he’s calling his mother now,” Strange sang a gentle desolate song and replied with a sharp slide guitar. Later, he imagines himself instead of Floyd.
Nothing is mixed in the strange song. His work transforms as it unfolds, constantly changing between idioms. His lyrics reject simple comfort. In “Mulholland Dr.”, he sets the guitar pattern skeins like Laurel Canyon’s productions of the last days and shines pretty even when singing about anxiety and mortality. And in “miserable,” he desperately feels lost, lost, and abandoned, and vaguely says, “I feel my life is wrong without you.” But the music carries him, a spiral crescendo with a guitar and synthesizer swells, jumping into a four-on-the-floor beat and making a leap towards the final realization.
Strange Bertie
“From the farm to the table”
(4AD)