Near the end of Tall Friend’s modest, 16-minute debut album Safely Nobody’s, there’s an exchange that could have been pulled from a much more grandiose work. Singer-songwriter Charlie Pfaff receives a call from the hospital from their mom, who wishes them a happy birthday and says “now you’re all grown up.” It’s the kind of well-meaning platitude that parents share with their kids without thinking much about, but the words land with unintended weight. “But mom,” Pfaff sings, in the small, naked voice of so many K Records artists, “I have been grown since I was small.”
In a big screen adaptation of Pfaff’s life, this would be a moment meant for the Oscar highlight reel, a tearful confrontation that ends with the child spelling out the failings of their parent. Pfaff doesn’t have any interest in big moments, though. Instead they let that exchange speak for itself, leaving the listener to fill in the specifics of their lost childhood. Safely Nobody’s is filled with memories like this, the faintest outline of anecdotes that say everything Pfaff wants them to in a minimum of words, set to bare-bones indie rock that’s just as selective as Pfaff’s prose.
On a record Pfaff has described as “a documentation of me packing up and unboxing many, many years of hurt,” Pfaff’s mother looms the largest. It’s her voice that opens the album, by way of an alarming voicemail that gives some insight into her mental state. She’s called to tell Charlie everything will be OK, a reassuring message that’s undermined by its weepy delivery. “I love you so much,” she sniffles, her voice breaking before she hangs up. It’s only a few seconds long, but it speaks volumes—one can only imagine what life must be like with a voicemail box full of these messages. Pfaff’s dad figures into the album, too, but mostly by way of absence or disinterest. When Pfaff hears one of his free jazz records on “Apoptosis,” it is the sound of rejection (“you loved its chaos, but mine’s just tiring.”)
Pfaff’s themes of trauma and recovery overlap heavily with some of the best emo records of the last few years, and like many emo acts, Tall Friend shares a drive to turn their pain into something constructive—or at least to offer a little consolation to anybody who may be in the same boat. Tall Friend doesn’t share emo’s tendencies toward drama and discord, though. As if to create a sense of security, Safely Nobody’s draws from a more welcoming palette of indie rock. A bit of Chan Marshall’s ache creeps into Pfaff’s voice on the Moon Pix-esque “Natural Things,” while the kinked guitars of “Radio” and “Apoptosis” look to Modest Mouse’s sinewy early records, without ever boiling over the way those albums did. The music is itself comforting, calibrated to offset the sting of Pfaff’s lyrics. Even as it opens old wounds, the closer “Small Space” breezes by with the sunny whimsy of a Pavement B-side.
Like Sufjan Stevens’ Carrie & Lowell, a similarly mournful account of a parent unable to live up to their own expectations, Safely Nobody’s doesn’t cast villains. It cloaks its hurt in warmth and gentle humor, never demonstrating any overt resentment. The album’s arc isn’t toward blame or forgiveness, but rather self-sufficiency. In the final moments of “Small Space,” Pfaff likens themself to a plant surviving whatever conditions the world throws at it, able to “take the harsh light and turn it into energy.” It’s far from a happy ending, but on a record about being failed by the people closest to you, figuring out how to subsist on your own is a victory.
