Montreal's DIY-driven Arbutus Records is experiencing A Moment, boasting a roster led by now-bona fide superstar Grimes and fleshed out by the likes of Doldrums, Braids, and Blue Hawaii. Their sounds may be disparate, but they're united by their desire to tackle questions of identity from unique and exciting perspectives, which makes Arbutus' latest release (from one of its earliest signings) a strong fit. Edmonton transplant Sean Nicholas Savage put together three full-lengths in 2011, suffered through the end of a relationship, and decamped to Berlin, where he wrote and recorded Other Life, an album largely shaped by that romantic turmoil. The final product is an unvarnished, honest collection of avant-pop meditations on love and the individual.
The major musical antecedent hanging over Other Life is Dan Bejar's band Destroyer, a group that has spent several full-length albums embarking on sonic reclamation projects like Your Blues (tiny MIDI symphonies) and Kaputt (chintzy, cheesy soft rock and jazz fusion). Savage deploys smooth, adult-contemporary instrumentation whose sound verges on tinny and toy-like, in a marriage of the principles guiding those two Destroyer records. It's not an innovative maneuver, but the juxtaposition of that sound with Savage's voice-- high, reedy; cracking and bending with emotion-- and the hefty lyrical content is jarring and effective.
Savage's own exploration of identity manifests in ideas of impersonation: "These days I feel like I'm somebody else/ Who looks just like me/ But he's not me," he sings on opener "She Looks Like You", a relationship ballad that frames the way people change over time and slowly become unrecognizable to each other. The best songs on Other Life tuck similarly weighty concepts into romantic narratives, whether it's fantasizing about living another life to escape the mistakes made in this one (on the title track) or coping with a love that cripples as it endures ("More Than I Love Myself"). The icky come-ons and dismissals of "Lonely Woman" recall the way Arbutus alumnus Majical Cloudz delights in making his audience uncomfortable. It takes a good deal of bravery to write and record songs that are so naked and unflinching, and it pays off: Savage's courage and palpable investment in the material makes it easy to connect and empathize with his subject matter.
After trekking through dangerous, taxing emotional terrain for the great majority of its runtime, Other Life ends with the sweet, bubbling "Chin Chin", an ode to gentle kisses on the chin delivered in the morning light. These lovers aren't posturing, fantasizing, or racked with anxiety; they're happy, unadorned, revelling in each other's goofy love. And while Savage has cobbled together a very good, honest album from a dark place, placing "Chin Chin" at the record's close is a bright glimmer of hope for what could come next.
