Dalton Darko & The Sorry Sorrys have a great name and a winning way with the quirky indie pop formula. They also have classic overtones to their songwriting and musicianship which perhaps dates back to the 50’s rather than the 60’s. There is a bit of a surf twang to the sound and I can imagine hearing it while I sit at the American diner sucking my milkshake down rather noisily after a day spent swimming at the lake. It’s the cooing harmonies, the sound of the lead vocals and even the subject matter.
“I throw myself in the lake”. A brilliant place to start a story and I have been pulled into the song. “It was a disaster this last summer”. I am even more intrigued. What happened last summer? What happened at the lake? “The water was hot and sweet but nothing happened while I swam in the heat”. Maybe nothing happened? Maybe it was all a dream? The chorus goes, “you make me miss the season, in so many ways/naked swims and walks and what I should have said/I could lay, by myself, in the summer rain”. Wistful, desirous, beautiful.
“I called your name across the ocean, blue and alone/I never found an echo, nothing ever shimmers, on the lake”. Man, love can really hurt sometimes. When this guy really opens out his lungs his voice goes from quirky to deeply affecting very rapidly. The middle eight showcases this perfectly. “Can’t you give me back/the time I wasted away?......There is a lake where the water is green/I really thought that you would stroke my skin for a while”. I really feel for this guy.
It’s a summer of love that has nothing to do with drugs and everything to do with love and life. These are the moments we truly remember. It’s about broken hearts. Sonically it brings to mind the work of two amazing bands: Garageland and The Pixies. Forget the quirks, this is effortlessly classic.
Samba De La Muerte is essentially the work of one man, Adrien Leprêtre, whose other band is Concrete Knives. His solo work is described as folktronica and that would be a fair description. Secrets is a perfect combination of man and machine. At the same time as being glitch to the point of jarring it is somehow seamless in combination. Where does the man start and the machine end? I have yet to hear this done better by anyone or anything.
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The song starts with a rough strum on a handmade guitar and whispered, “Secrets in our hands/the secrets in our tongues/are longing to get out/are about to come out”. Then come the electromagnetic keys and more hushed tones. Then comes the rain stick and the disembodied harmonies. We are all at sea with these secrets. We are being tossed about.
At about one minute forty the whole thing ‘crashes’ and then folds to bliss. “Turn your lies inside out/bring them to the daylight/lies feed no illusions/there’s nothing we can hide”. Then come the swelling strings that would destroy the facade of a brick building and some solid beat for the meat of the song. I hate this song for making me cry but I love it all the same. At three minutes the fade out begins and we travel home with a picked acoustic. “The secrets in our hands/are about to come out”.
To call it a mini symphony might be a step too far but it’s not a bad attempt at that and it is without doubt a fine piece of work. This is Hood with balls, more deathly than pastoral and the work of one man not four or more. I can’t get enough of it. Let’s bring this secret out into the daylight.
WeWant2Wecord Bandcamp page
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