Mega Bog is the Seattle- and Brooklyn-based band of Erin Birgy and her merry crew of players. Together, they have the power to transform the mundane into jazzy wonderlands. The group’s second album, Happy Together, bubbles and abstractly teems without ever feeling excessive. Birgy flits through a sound that is both familiar and far-out. Mega Bog often summon the spirit of David Bowie with enigmatic lyrics and twinges of glam concretely based in guitar music. It’s freaky in the best way.
Happy Together begins with a dizzying sensation comparable to tumbling down a rabbit hole. The uneasy spirals of “Black Rose” evoke a soupy free fall into a new reality; the lyrics are equally spooky. The supernatural “Blackout” is paradoxically sunny—still a tough nut to crack, but it’s considerably more inviting. “My heads in a bed of improbable palm trees on an ugly, cold Chicago night,” Birgy murmurs, the words dripping like honey.
Above all, Mega Bog’s sound is malleable. Birgy’s vocal character fluctuates from an operatic soprano to a wispy sage to a windswept Gold Dust Woman. The band itself is flexible, with members fading in and out while also working on their own projects. Performers on Happy Together include the multi-instrumentalists Zach Burba and Will Murdoch of iji (which Birgy has played in), Hand Habits guitar virtuoso Meg Duffy (seen recently on tour with Kevin Morby’s band), and Big Thief’s James Krivchenia (who also mixed and mastered the record), among others. “It’s hyper-sexual, Aquarian music,” Birgy once said, but rather than collapsing into some sort of Hair style free-love fest, Mega Bog’s shape-shifting is carefully constructed.
Take “Diznee,” a swirling saxophone showcase that bobs along madly while spouting tongue-teasing lyrics like “Soda fountain on the fritz/In the ritzy/Underground Billy Goat bar.” The track is an absolute circus, always threatening to spin off its axis, if such a center even exists. The zippy dream that concludes “Diznee” flings Happy Together into a surrealism that is both sinister (“London”) and mystical (“She’s History”), but like a disco ball, it always encourages dancing through the darkness.
This feels particularly pertinent on the haunted, interstellar “192014.” “So when it’s your turn to start working towards the light/And how do you plan on giving me back any of my precious time?,” Birgy asks over spasming saxophones. Speaking of horns, “Diznee,” “192014,” and the sprawling “Worst Way” all celebrate the honking saxophone. Whether yelping, screeching, or beeping in joy, Mega Bog’s use of the sax adds a wonderfully freewheeling detail to an already complex mosaic.
Then there’s “Fwee,” a Happy Together standout that meditates on inner peace following a period of trauma. “How could I have known,” Birgy asks carefully, each word melting like a pad of butter, “There’s a person out there who means me no harm.” As Birgy walks through her own realizations, “Fwee” twists and turns alongside her, weaving spindly guitar through husky ’70s harmonies, before finally dissolving into psychedelic chaos at the climax of its lyrical consciousness. “Fwee” is an outlier on Happy Together, in that it is the most temporal. Its concerns are bodily as much as they are mental. Whether Happy Together is boogieing through a lively cacophony or laying low, Mega Bog never lose sight of the end goal: exploring purity and joy that take a variety of forms but never evaporate.
