This EP brings together San Francisco based Singer Songwriter Bob Hillman, whose worked with peter case among many others, with Irish new Yorker Gerry Leonard who is best known for producing Suzanne Vega but appears here as Spooky Ghost on the glitchy electronics.
The opening song on this ep Somebody's Watching You sounds like a glitchcore folk song or a mash up of the two with a central vocal and acoustic guitar adorned with all sorts of odd and weird glitchy noises and sounds as we try not to forget how watched we all are.
We May be Getting Better uses the same glitchy folk formula to come up with a pleasing yet disturbing song that hopes we are getting better, in a year like this who can tell when things improve, or go further downhill, the noises feel like aliens have invaded your favorite folk cellar and are having words with the traditionalists. The treatment of the song and the effects reminds me a lot of Bip Hop legend Phillippe Pettit's more pop oriented work.
Elena is a short biography as song and asks questions about what your rights to privacy are in this most online of worlds, as the glitchy folk help with a sense of foreboding and worry about what will happen to Elena in this none too brave new world. It is of course about Elena Ferrante rather than the Elena that Dan Stuart often sings about.
Las Vegas opens as if it's going to be a Nick Drake style folk song before the synth noises start happening beneath the acoustic guitar to take it to a different place as this tale of things going awry in Las Vegas unfolds like a slot machine malfunctioning as the gambling never ends.
The ep closes with Urban Wildlife with imagery of Coyote's wandering down your street over bruised vocals and laid back guitar before the odder noises start to decorate the sound and you start to think of all the other wildlife we now see in our cities. This will worm its way into your brain and make you need to hear it again. It would also fit in a cool Coyote mix along sine The Velvet Undergrounds Coyote and Concrete Blonde's Hey Coyote while you try to figure out how many other Coyote songs you can name.
Find out more at https://bobhillman.bandcamp.com/album/bob-hillman-spooky-ghost https://www.facebook.com/bobhillmanmusic/ http://www.bobhillmanmusic.com
