If you’ve found yourself wondering if you will ever hear an alternative track that holds any authenticity ever again, find yourselves pleasantly surprised with the sweetly psychotropic earworm, ‘The Town’, by art-rock Oakland-residing duo, Nightbird Casino.
With elements of artfully composed jazz, grunge, space rock, psych-pop and classical all melting in the alchemically intoxicating pot, you will practically feel the rabbit hole opening beneath you as you listen to the descending cadence of the jazzy improv instrumentals.
The existentialist air to The Town paired with the playfully avant-garde approach to production allows the track to become the ‘everything is burning down around me, and I’m totally fine’ meme, personified. And something tells me that if Bukowski was still around, he would have Nightbird Casino on his playlists; they share the same downtrodden but subversively charismatic appeal.
On this track, you’ll hear dual harmonic vocals from the founding members, James Moore and Don Shepherd. Instrumentally, you’ll hear session musician Nicolas Ocampo (clarinets, flute, saxophone, oboe, bassoon), James on bass and ondes martenot and Don on guitars, piano, organ, and drums.
With their sophomore album, ‘Rusian Carpet‘, due for release this summer, any fans of Radiohead, Sonic Youth or Mr Bungle will want Nightbird Casino on their radar.
The Town officially released on April 23rd; you can check it out for yourselves by heading over to Soundcloud.
Review by Amelia Vandergast