The prolific emo folk project A Day Without Love, led by frequent Worcester DIY stage denizen Brian Walker, is back with the EP “LOG/OFF,” a genre-blending collaboration with Bay Area musician Valentvne that dropped Oct. 3.
The project opens with a dial tone over muffled Midwest emo guitar on “2003,” and when a perky voice on the other end of the line says, “Leave a message,” Walker and Valentvne both respond.
“Used to see eye to eye, held each other every night/How did things get so strange, wishing things would never change,” both sing over a hip-hop beat that incorporates the dial tone again as a harmonized sample.
“Been sitting here wishing things never changed/’Cause I’m broken up with a lot of pain/And ever since you walked out, it’s like you don’t even know my name anymore,” Valentvne sings. “Back up, I don’t want you around… calling for backup.”
On “Keyboard Warrior,” Walker pulls together indie and hip-hop sounds to call out every poser with a trust fund who talks a good game about revolutionary politics, but in the end “can’t fake the funk when you play folk punk.”
“Mom and dad always seem to pay your (expletive) bills,” he raps. “Come to the show and everybody knows that you’re lying on yourself/You never struggled, never fumbled, always had that clout/It’s more than stickers, more than patches … where’s your passion, where’s your action?”
Valentvne aims his verse at a specific subset of those big talkers: the ones from wealthy white families who pay lip service to racial equality, but when it comes down to it, won’t defend their Black and brown neighbors against police brutality.
“It’s 1-3-1-2, you wouldn’t kill a cop ‘cause they wouldn’t kill you/A-C-A-B, you wanna see me choke ‘cause you hate to see me breathe,” he raps.
On “Tension,” both address stress, and on “Misfit,” Ember Nugent joins the duo, and all three muse out of tune over soft guitar, as per folk punk tradition, about lack of connection, both in individual relationships and in a fractured post-lockdown, social media-addicted society: “Everyone’s a misfit, everyone’s quiet, we don’t ever go outside/Why are you lying? Why are you crying? No one ever needs to die.”
“LOG/OFF” is available on music streaming services and A Day Without Love’s Bandcamp page.
Self-discovery and wearing pink
If you listened to A Day Without Love’s “No Hater Zone” earlier in the year, you heard some contributions from South Shore songwriter Justin Arena, who brings together a remarkable array of artists from Massachusetts and elsewhere for the full-length “Glory: Fades To Black.”
Several of the album’s tracks are collaborations with New Bedford singer-songwriter Molly O’Leary, including the opener “Snowflakes,” mental health ode “Brain Vs. Body,” and closer “Eldweiss,” and though much of the record is full of soft acoustic sounds, sometimes the dissonance comes through on tracks like the eerie “Our Cage,” which features screaming metal vocals.
If you were on Vine a decade ago (yes, it really was that long ago), you might recognize Seattle musician Nat Puff from any of a number of skits — the one where she reacts to an overly contrived “relatable” Facebook meme by deadpanning, “Ha ha ha, I do that,” or perhaps the one where she responds to “There’s only one race, the human race,” by shouting, “What about NASCAR?”
She’s on “Glory,” surprisingly enough, making an appearance on “Bright Lights” as her solo project Left At London. Puff, who is transgender, joins Arena, who is genderqueer, in addressing the isolating experience of self-discovery, singing together that “the only way forward is to keep driving away.”
“If I didn’t get to choose who I was when I was born/Then I’m going to choose who I am when I die,” Arena sings, with Puff’s backing vocals echoing behind her. “If I live every day on a delay/Then maybe my end will be tailor-made.”
Arena pulls together O’Leary, A Day Without Love, Myles Bullen and Second Hands for “Wear Pink,” an ode to self-acceptance and proud gender nonconformity, and though Arena did not respond to our request for comment on the album, the lyrics tell it all: You’ll feel better when you throw away others’ expectations.
“People say I’m strong, why do I feel so weak?/But I am strong, I think,” the whole posse sings, first one by one, then in unison. “A little bit less wearing blue than pink.”
“Glory: Fades To Black” is available on music streaming services.
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