Usually when I adore a musician, I instinctively hate their imitators, out of loyalty and a desire for originality. But when singer-songwriters come along and remind me of Elliott Smith, I swoon. It’s not like he invented acoustic guitars and poignant lyrics, but he was certainly one of a kind, and I can’t blame other musicians for following in his footsteps. If I made music, I would probably try to sound like him, too.
Nixon Boyd hails from Ontario and has been playing in the indie rock band Hollerado since 2007. Hollerado make a much different brand of indie rock than Boyd’s solo stuff—infectious anthems laced with power-pop ecstasy. When Boyd was almost finished with his debut solo album Every Time We Turn A Corner, the bag with the hard drives containing the album was stolen from his car, and he started over. I don’t exclusively subscribe to the mindset of "Everything happens for a reason," but I tend to think it’s the best outlook to have on most situations, including this one. When I listen to Every Time We Turn A Corner, I can’t imagine it being any other way.
The first Boyd song I listened to was the LP’s lead single “You Will Always Get Away With It.” I was immediately drawn in by the Elliott Smith of it all, but I was also haunted, long after the song ended, by the hook: “You will always get away with it/ Anyway, yeah.” Like Smith, he doesn’t reveal much more than that. He doesn’t say how it makes him feel; he just leaves it there, which is far more powerful than offering an explanation. On some listens, I think he’s frustrated with this person who is inexplicably immune to consequences; other times, I feel like he’s impressed. Real writers know that what you omit is as important as what you say.
It sometimes seems like Boyd is trying to see just how short his refrains can be. On “Sleepover,” it’s just two words: “Home again.” On “Blindfolded,” it’s just one — the title — and it feels like enough, as he sings of feeling blindfolded and being willing to follow someone anywhere blindfolded.
Every Time We Turn A Corner isn’t Elliott Smith pastiche. The title track, which serves as the opener, has an almost surfy atmosphere to it, à la Mac DeMarco at his calmest. As with “You Will Always Get Away With It,” the irresistibility is in the repetition of the refrain, which in this case is just the words of the song/album title. But he draws out the phrase by repeating the word “turn” — repetition inside of repetition, a trick he uses throughout the album. It almost seems like a cheat code, because the sentiment hits even harder.
“Sleepover” beautifully explores existential loneliness through a story of an anxious woman trapped in a profound homesick feeling that comes and goes, the kind that one can experience inside one’s own bedroom. Home is a recurring theme, also found on the last track, “How I Know I’m Home,” where home is not a place but a feeling, a yearning for someone. It’s not the person that he considers home, but the feeling they induce, even if it’s pain. Boyd’s knack for packing evocative sentiments into so few words and quick, vivid scenes brings to mind rising Philly singer-songwriter Greg Mendez, whose Beauty Land was one of the best albums of this year so far. I pitch a collaboration, or even a tour, though I think that would be a lot, emotionally.
What makes Every Time We Turn A Corner so special is this lyrical and sonic sparseness. Bare bones, bare feelings, entrusting the listener with the ability to understand, to make sense of what’s going on. He’s confident that the soft strums of an acoustic guitar are enough to match the emotion of the lyrics, and they are — though some weepy lap steel here and there certainly helps, like on the spiritual “Golden Days,” a song that turns a moment into a religious monument. “May all your days be golden long after I am gone,” he sings so affectionately and crushingly, you could almost die.
Every Time We Turn A Corner is self-released on 7/3.
Other albums of note out this week:
• Madonna's Confessions II
• Mary In The Junkyard's Role Model Hermit
• Ken Carson's xperiment
• Smirk's Speculative Fiction
• Play Time's Magic Object
• Sienna Spiro's Visitor
• Low Cut Connie's Livin In The USA
• Kevin Copeland's Only Love Songs
• Topdown Dialectic's False LP A
• Anton Pearson's Driving Through Belgium
• Nirosta Steel's My Skyscraper
• DOMINUM's Night Is Calling
• Blake Whiten's Something To Say
• Deep Purple's Splat!
• Batu & Donato Dozzy's Exhale
• Aaron Lum's Tomorrow Is The First Day Of Your Life
• The Heavenly Bodes' Green Hills
• Akusmi's Terra Incognita
• Skyjack's Let The Sky Open Under Your Feet
• Josh Ottum's Light Depression
• Mortem's Mørketid
• Robyn Hitchcock's Live At Acheron
• Cecil Taylor Orchestra Humane's At Iridium 2004 Live Album
• Function's Aeternum (Existenz) Mini Album
• V8's V8 Mini Album
• Joseph Kamaru's Further Combinations EP
• Daniela Lalita's TAC TAC EP
• Zorn's Return To Castle Death EP
• Mirrorball's Mirrorball EP
