Everybody knew Kelley Stoltz loved The Beatles. With "Perpetual Night,"
the first song off his groundbreaking, underground Antique Glow, he
borrowed a lick right out of "Here Comes the Sun." Here, on his five-song
debut for Sub Pop, he lifts nothing as instantly recognizable, but still
manages to conjure that expansive, hazy, warmly experimental (and perhaps
substance-enhanced) aura of strawberry fields and magical mystery
tours. It is not his best work — there's nothing as darkly beautiful as
"Mean Marianne" or "Jewel of the Evening," no track as euphoric as "Are You
Electric?" — but The Sun Comes Through has its own wavery charm.
The title track, which launches the album, starts with a Lennon-y strut,
upright piano chords and vaguely gospel backing vocals supporting a surreal, picturesque narrative. You sense from the beginning that the track
will explode at some point — there's simply too much dammed up behind not to — and in fact that moment comes with a crash of guitar after the second chorus. The cut breaks down completely halfway through, turning into a
drone of feedback shot through with piano-school exercises. Yet the
initial melody emerges from this wholly undishevelled, picking up exactly
where it left off with the mantra "And the sun comes through the window and
it's all right." The disc continues with the giddy tremolo of "You're Out
of This World," a loosely constructed '60s-leaning ditty, built on those
same piano scales that emerged from the vortex of "The Sun Comes
Through." The lyrics "You're out of this world/ Glad you're my girl" loop
continuously, past blips of guitar and slapdash drums, in a way that's
joyful, ad-hoc and unmediated. "Away With the Swans" puts the piano again
at the heart of the melody, with a stop-step motif that Stoltz later
mirrors in the vocals. "Let's Go Out Tonight" is the EP's best cut, with
its loosely driving guitar part and dance-worthy drum beat. It's a very
happy track, but not a deep one, celebrating the joys of coupledom and,
well, going out. Says Stoltz, "Now that the heavenly bodies align/ And I
have one for my own/ I don't need to spend every night/ Sitting there at
home," and that pretty much encapsulates this jittery "let's go
dancing"-esque track. The EP ends with a wash of tremoloed guitars
ushering in an indolent Brit-blues melody, as "Where You're Going" cranks
to life. Again the vocals twist up and down the scales in time with the
piano, again the swish of cymbals and chime of guitars build a sunny-day
dream of psychedelia, not precisely shaped or rigorously pursued, but
lazily beautiful on its own terms.
The Sun Comes Through is a place holder in some ways, keeping Stoltz
fans happy until his next full-length comes out next year. It's not
essential listening... and if you haven't checked out Antique Glow or
The Past Was Faster, it might make sense to start with them. If
you're up to speed, though, and looking for more, you'll enjoy the
lo-fi eccentricity of these five songs from a very talented songwriter.
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