If you're the sort of person for whom the phrase "featuring the bassist from Black Kids" seems a label as poisonous as a skull and crossbones on a cartoon bottle-- and really, given that band's stinker of a debut full-length, who could blame you-- prepare to be surprised. Gospel Music, the near-impossible-to-Google new project by Jacksonville's Owen Holmes (the bass player in question), is an attempt to erase the memory of the overblown, glossy production and mannered songwriting of Black Kids' Partie Traumatic by making music that is its polar opposite: immediate, slightly sloppy, and charmingly casual. And Duettes, the band's maddeningly spelled debut EP, succeeds as a brief-but-likable collection of purposefully lo-fi pop songs that are long on infectious melodies but short on arty pretension.
In fact, if no one told you Duettes had a thing to do with Black Kids, you would never guess. Holmes naturally has the low, gravelly voice and occasional monotone of Calvin Johnson or Adam Green, and he has smartly crafted raw, minimalist songs in the vein of Beat Happening or the Moldy Peaches to fit those vocals. Instead of his other band's synth-driven sound, the keyboard instruments that Holmes plays on this album (like toy piano or vintage organ) are used sparingly as decoration, and the melodies are instead steered by acoustic guitars or rootsy banjos. And the lyrics, which eschew complicated metaphors or grand ideas, are clever and conversational, like something a friend or the drunk on the next barstool has said to you before.
Considering their simple arrangements, these songs are driven forward by Holmes' finely detailed stories. On "Gamophobia", Holmes lists all the actions he's willing to take for his beloved if she'll just "stop asking for a wedding ring." It's an "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" for committed singles. And "Reinheitsgebot", which takes its name from a German beer-brewing law, elegantly captures the painful, I'm-doing-fine posturing that follows a breakup. Every verse announces a new, exciting hobby the narrator has taken up, from home-brewing to marathon-running, or a vice that he's quit, like smoking, but the real message of the song lies in its chorus: "You didn't get the best of me. The best of me came after you. Now it's being wasted on someone new," yet listeners can sadly tell that the man doth protest too much.
Holmes smartly sought out a winning team of vocal collaborators for Duettes' five tracks-- hence the album's title. Though he does duet with one man-- Hefner's Darren Hayman on "Reinheitsgebot"-- his songs sound best when his baritone speak-singing is bolstered by a sweet, girlish voice, allowing listeners to revel in the sound of their opposition. On the bouncy, call-and-response "Automobile", that voice comes from Camera Obscura's Tracyanne Campbell; on the Silver Jews-ish "I Miss the Shit Out of You" his partner is French singer Soko; and playing up Gospel Music's resemblance to the Magnetic Fields at their most skeletal, that band's Shirley Simms plays the role of the marriage-hungry lover on "Gamophobia".
The EP's closing track, "Are Your Parents Still Together?", plays like a brief, minute-and-a-half conversation between Holmes and Vivian Girls' Cassie Ramone. Backed by Ramone's gooey "ooh wah ooh"s, the two singers trade barbs about stereotypically perfect families ("Is your father a professor? Is mom a fiction writer? Do they pledge to public radio, and make their own pasta dough?") while sussing out whether they will make good partners for each other, vowing at the end of the song to "do it better" than their parents did. It is, perhaps, the most nakedly sentimental moment of the album, but it doesn't feel corny, thanks to the song's offhand tone and unfussy production.
The album is brief, and given its messy, tossed-off vibe, it may feel too slapdash or inessential to some listeners. But fans of lo-fi pop would be hard-pressed not to be won over by his lyrical specificity, melodic infectiousness, and vocal collaborators. Considering that we have been waiting for a redemptive follow-up for Partie Traumatic for almost three years, perhaps Holmes' other band should take a cue from their bass player: Don't overthink it. When it comes to pop music, it is often better to be spontaneous than overworked.
