Carter Tanton :: "Fake Pretend" [feat. Marissa Nadler]

Carter Tanton's latest single, "Fake Pretend" is a spiraling web of echoes and glittering pop, showcasing the sublime vocals of Marissa Nadler. The warm tones of Tanton's strange fusion of singer-songwriter pop and electronic overtones take the sound out of the bedroom to the corner and then back again. On "Fake Pretend", Tanton resists classical structures of verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus-chorus, opening with Nadler operating like some kind of half-drowned muse, before Tanton himself steps in amidst cascading guitars and sings the only hook, "I'm nobody's fool." Seemingly interested in the fragile balance between intricacies and the ways in which delicate things fall apart, Tanton lets his composition collapse before reconstituting it behind even warmer guitars and a final movement featuring the title lyric. Nadler's vocal hides at the top of the mix, like some half-forgotten and entirely beautiful thing. The final act, washing synthesizers seize the arrangement and "Fake Pretend" fades out as winsome as it came.

Listen :: Carter Tanton - "Fake Pretend" [Feat. Marissa Nadler]

Carter Tanton :: "Horrorscope"

It isn't the words, you think, it's the space between them. It isn't the sounds, it's the timing of the silence that matters. For Carter Tanton, formerly of indie rock outfit Tulsa, it isn't the guitar fuzz, a four-on-the-floor cacophony, that makes "Horrorscope", it is the ability for all that noise to allow for something at the interstices. The arrangement explodes into chiming breakdowns, momentary respites from a melody that never feels like it totally has its sea legs, the kind of song that moves relentlessly forward because it fears what lies behind. Maybe it sounds like early Ryan Adams fronting a shoegaze outfit, but the focus is still the dynamic. The last second is most revealing. Tanton, instruments sucked away in an instant, stands alone on a note before the whole thing runs away over the edge. And, like that, it's gone.

Listen :: Carter Tanton - "Horrorscope"
Listen :: Carter Tanton - "Murderous Joy"