Words by Brendan

Being somewhat new to this whole blogging thing, I still feel surprised and honored that people choose to send me their music. I guess music is art and people want to share their creations, you know? Sometimes I don’t really like what I hear, though, but I still get that tingle of … I don’t know, joy almost—a common bond over the human experience. But it’s even better when someone says, “Hey, listen to this. I made it. You’ll like it!” and I find myself saying, “You know what? Yes, yes I do!” That’s exactly what happened with In Tall Buildings and, on top of that, they are traveling to Pittsburgh this Thursday to share their wonderful music in person. How about that!

In Tall Buildings / The Way to a Monster’s Lair
In Tall Buildings / Elvis Presley Blues
In Tall Buildings / Warm Rock

Erik Hall is the man behind In Tall Buildings—the songwriter, the instrumentalist, the singer, etc. He has played guitar with the Michigan-based, jazzy Afro-beat revival band NOMO for years, and that makes me all the more surprised by the overall mellowness, relatively speaking, of his solo work. The songs on In Tall Buildings‘ self-titled debut album are, for the most part, pastoral folk songs with earnest lyrics sung smoothly and calmly, but they’re all tinged with the touches of a modern-day indie rocker in just the right ways. There are washes of guitarscapes and little bits of feedback blurring the edges on “Elvis Presley Blues” while Erik reminisces about the rock ‘n roller’s death day, and it’s a genuinely fresh take on a Gillian Welch tune. There’s skittery percussion and intricate rhythms on “Good Fences” while Erik picks at an acoustic guitar and sings about solitude. There’s a really cool clarinet line on “The Way to a Monster’s Lair”. And album-closer “Flemishing” stretches out for 9 minutes, building huge sounds and then boiling down to almost silence, then rising again from those ashes, and ultimately crawling to a halt that leaves you wondering just how long you’ve been sitting there listening. Was it an hour? Twelve seconds? Who knows?

Check out some tunes above, including their single “Warm Rock” which is a cover of fellow-Chicagoans Cains and Abels and appears on a Record Store Day exclusive 7″ that came out a few weeks ago. Check out their Bandcamp page for more tunes. Check out the video below of the band playing “The Way to a Monster’s Lair” live in their studio. And check out the band live at Garfield Artworks this Thursday, May 5th: show at 8:00ish, just $5! They’ve played recently with Sharon Van Etten and The Rural Alberta Advantage, and from the looks of that live video, they can really rock out when they want to. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing that.
 

In Tall Buildings on the web: Website, Bandcamp, Twitter, Facebook, order vinyl/CD via Whistler Records

Filed under: Live Music, New to Us, New to You?