Bandcamp Friday - "Thirlestane Road" by Frances Grass

Credit: Frances Grass' Bandcamp (https://francesgrass.bandcamp.com/album/thirlestane-road)

Editor’s Note: This is the first Bandcamp Friday feature! These are not solicited or paid reviews—I go digging through Bandcamp’s fresh releases to find something that speaks to me that I wouldn’t have discovered otherwise, buy it, and that’s what ends up here. There’s great music being made every day by new artists and the hope is to shine a light on it, for myself and for my imagined reader.

Additionally, while I'd love for you to stream any albums reviewed here as a sampler, please pay artists for their music and own a copy, because stream counts don't pay the bills! WW

I can smell a cheese pun a mile away. Even if I’m not expecting it, even if it seems unlikely, I see the little scent lines wafting off it and follow my nose through whatever de-brie is in my way. I was not expecting one, much less two, in the track “Blue Cheese” on New Zealand singer/songwriter Frances Grass’ debut EP, but in the midst of lactose intolerance as a metaphor for potentially hazardous relationships, she asks if she “made a gouda impression” or “camembert all your troubles” as she warns in the chorus that “wanting me is like wanting cheese” when you’re lactose intolerant. It was a twist of feta that I discovered this record.

Cheese puns aside—they only pique my interest, not capture my attention—Grass’ debut EP “Thirlestane Road” is a gorgeous, swirling record that grows on me with each spin. Many of the songs feature her fingerstyle electric guitar, which keeps the songs pulsing and moving without the use of drums (except on the aforementioned “Blue Cheese”). Opening track “Free” places this guitar in a humming and thrumming sea of ambient noise, with Grass’ vocals and high harmonies cutting through, imploring us to “bury the remnants of love in the autumn leaves” so that it can “decay and grow new trees”.

Tracks like “Free”, “Thirlestane Road”, and “Half Loved” call to mind the dreamscapes of 90’s Mazzy Star records. “Thirlestane Road” starts with similar fingerpicked guitar to “Free”, but quickly slides underwater into thick sliding and shifting tidal chords. “Terribly blue” she repeats in refrain, which I take in an oceanic way instead of just sad, given the rain of slide guitars, slight and wanting diminished chords, and the underpinning deep soundscape. If this is feeling terribly blue, I’m okay with it.

“Late to the Party” brings a brief glimpse of Fleet Fox-like harmonies to a lilting guitar and bass riff, before the arrival of a bright flute tells us that the party might have been in France in the 1960’s and we’re very late indeed. The bass and the flute are refugees from a European summer of love, but the steel and slide on the refrains root the song in something closer to modern Americana. As I interpret it, this song is about not wanting to socialize, and what we’ll do to get out of it—lie, be late, just about anything, even though it is your friend’s party and you should really be there. I think the desire to not socialize may become one of the defining themes of the post-Covid era. I get it. The song is instantly catchy, and will be taking up rent free space in my head while it avoids going to the party for another several hours.

Grass’ upright bassist gets a moment to shine on closing track “Half Loved”, with a jazzy guitar and thumpy bass duet that finds the singer “wasted on being half-loved” and losing trust. The Mazzy Star knob gets dialed up substantially on this track, with dreamy vocals and a wall of flute and synth that might well swallow the song if the fingerstyle electric guitar didn’t safely carry us through and deliver us to the end. It’s a warm blanket of sound, but the core duo of guitar and bass keep it ambulatory, so perhaps it's a nice wool jumper instead of a blanket.

All in all, it’s a cohesive and engaging debut that manages to sound timeless, even when it calls to mind specific eras and bands with its instrumentation and sounds. The record is tagged with the phrase “dream folk”, and had it not already been hashtagged on the Bandcamp page, it’s the phrase I probably would have used to describe it. Ethereal with notes of pop, country, and jazz as necessary to ground the songs (and a straightforward rocker with “Blue Cheese” that eschews the dreaminess in favor of fuzzboxes and drums). Bandcamp is still a cottage industry, and you only have to paese $5 NZD to pick up a copy of this record. That's not a lot of jack. OK, OK, I'm done with the cheese puns.

“Thirlestane Road” is a lovely, warm, and inviting debut EP by Frances Grass that releases today, July 11th on Bandcamp. Subscribe and come back next week for a look at two more classic albums, and another Bandcamp Friday discovery!