SubFamily Records announces the release of Happy for Both, 15 minutes of new music by Macrofone, featuring vocal performances by notable friends Rhett Miller and Laura Stevenson.
A D.I.Y, multi-bedroom project, Macrofone comprises two busy musicians in New York’s mid-Hudson valley. Guitarist and songwriter John Burdick leads the enduring smart pop band the Sweet Clementines. Drummer and songwriter Sammi Niss releases her own music as Hiding Behind Sound. The pair has played together in a variety of projects including Laura Stevenson, Battle Ave., Matt Pond PA, Pelican Movement, Peter Naddeo, and several others.
The first two songs on Happy for Both, both written by Burdick, come at issues of class and privilege from different angles. A sparse, sophisticated tin pan alley pop gem elevated by a harmony vocal performance from Laura Stevenson, “The Goodrich” gets deep inside the contradictions of well-intended wealth. The lazy, tuneful slack rock of “2.8 GPA for XMAS” documents the moment at a college student, under the influence of a 21st century liberal arts education, begins to recognize the foundations of his own shabby advantage and his unpreparedness for the rapacious world of late-stage capitalism.
“Both ‘The Goodrich’ and ‘2.8 GPA for XMAS’ began as character sketches on paper,” Burdick says. They were three-dimensional and sympathetic. The process of paring the language down to fit the verses really brought out the cynicism and the acid in them. Funny how that happens, but I still feel that both songs have some heart for their subjects, and more than a little complicity.”
Co-written by Burdick and Niss, “The Soul Won’t Know Its Part” is a homely and simple folk song that conflates doomed love and Biblical prophecy in a kind of agnostic hymn. The Beatle-esque “Liverpool, NY” closes the set with a dash of bedroom pop grandeur and with lead vocal cameos by Stevenson and by Old 97’s front man and solo artist Rhett Miller.
“The idea with ‘Liverpool,’” says Burdick, “was to recruit two friends who are something like rock stars to sing a song that I intended as a melancholic post-mortem on my own rock star dreams; ‘going back to Liverpool,’ failed Beatles. We were kind of surprised how willing and eager both Rhett and Laura were to do it. They are two of the hardest working people I know, so scheduling it was tricky, but we managed to get it done in one session with both present because Laura was keen to meet Rhett and ask him some critical questions about his hair.”
“Happy for Both is kind of a teaser of what is to come,” says Sammi. “We have a great musical and personal connection. This is just the beginning of the Macrofone feed. We have tons of stuff finished and coming soon.”
credits
released May 13, 2019
Produced by Macrofone
“The Goodrich,” “2.8 GPA for XMAS,” and “Liverpool, NY” Written by John Burdick
“The Soul Won’t Know It’s Part” written by John Burdick and Sammi Niss.
Spaceboat Music, ASCAP; SAMMI WINS, ASCAP
Mastered by Jamal Ruhe
“Liverpool, NY” mastered by Megan Peterson
Additional engineering by Jason Sarubbi
Cover photo by Stephanie Marrinan
John Burdick: acoustic and electric guitars, vocals, bass, keyboards
Sammi Niss: electric guitars, drums, percussion, dulcimer, vocals
Laura Stevenson: vocals on “The Goodrich” and “Liverpool, NY”
Rhett Miller: vocals on “Liverpool, NY”
Alex Billig: pump melanchromion on “The Goodrich”
Eamon Burdick: cavaquinho on “Liverpool, NY”
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