John Vanderslice - Dagger Beach - Indie/shoegaze - Vox, guitar, drums,

Kickstarter-financed self-released ninth album from local musician, producer, recording engineer. Per wikipedia, the “owner and founder of Tiny Telephone, a San Francisco Mission District analog recording studio.” Slowish, gentle/dreamy/chill, upbeat in a way that’s not cheerful or sunny. No straight-ahead ‘guy with a guitar’-ness here; this fellow likes his post-production. No FCCs detected. ~eme o.

1. Raw Wood (3:17) Ruminating on the self that exists beneath the veneer (or varnish, if you will). Guitar, drums, piano punctuations

2. Harlequin Press (3:27) Starts of with a whirl of sound fronted by a washboard. Changes nature after the briefest of drum solos ~0:18. Somewhat tribal drum. Squeebly birdsong, gentle flute add brightness to the mix.

3. Song for Dana Lok (2:21) Bright guitar picking, almost folksy (or Shins-y). Pure-sounding, yet still with inorganic elements.

4. How the West Was Won (3:47) Starts out sounding almost like electronica. Locked drums, twinkly stars, toy xylophone?

5. Interlude #1 (2:11) Ambient soundscape. A bit like floatnig through a space with set obstacles and then the occasional comet zooming by. Metronome-like cymbal.

* 6. Song for David Berman (4:54) Sensitive guitar. Restful tone. If not a love song, then an expression of deep appreciation.

7. Damage Control (4:21) Starts off rather Talking Heads-y. Simple Minds crashes the party ~1:08, then goes home ~1:28. Oh, wait, they just went around the corner and came back ~2:39.

* 8. Songs for the Landlords of Tiny Telephone (1:32) Jazz-style noodling on guitar, bass. (The only song here John Vanderslice did not write.)

* 9. Gaslight (2:45) Lurching rhythm between drum and guitar sections, vocals out of time also. Unsettling (perhaps unsurprisingly, considering the song title). Hint of South Africa in the electric guitar. Rhythm changes ~2:00, becoming more standard.

10. Sleep it off (2:43) Soundtrack for a relationship status change. “It’s complicated.”

11. Sonogram (2:24) Ticking clock, that vaguely South African guitar (which I now recognize as shades of Vampire Weekend), lots of background whooshes.

12. North Coast Rep (4:05) Electronic squiggles in background, vox at the forefront, harmonizing voice on chorus (maybe female, maybe male falsetto).

13. Interlude #2 (0:47) A brief ambient outro