Little Scream

This week’s edition of Tuesday Tracks features words a little more prominently than normal. Each of these unique artists pays particular attention to language with varying levels of musical accompaniment. We’ve tended to focus a lot on bands here, which is fine—bands are great. But just for kicks, here’s a handful of solo artists with something to say, even if it’s not always easy to figure out precisely what the message is.

Wowzers. Destroyer just discovered soft-rock and it’s…really, really good. Honestly, it never occured to me that schmaltzy ’80s saxophone would make its way into the indie-rock songwriting, but I’m sure glad it did. To be honest, I really don’t know what to talk about first—the slow jazzy, saxophone croon or the epic LSD trip of a video that accompanies it. It would be a waste of time to try and explain either, so watch the video for “Kaput” below, the title track of Destroyer’s forthcoming album due later this month.

Little Scream is the moniker for Iowa-born, Montreal-based musician Laurel Sprengelmeyer. Her debut album The Golden Record isn’t out until April, but you can check out its first single, “Heron and the Fox” below. It’s a beautiful, sobering song of loneliness and longing. It conjures up images of Nick Drake, fragile and cautious, but veers away slightly part way through to something more harrowing. Listen below:

You might have heard of Tanya Davis before. She’s an accomplished poet as well as being a songwriter and is half of the duo—along with filmmaker Andrew Dofman—who created the lovely and poignant video “How to be alone” that went viral last year. Lucky for us her songwriting is just as stunning, full of the same thoughtful language found in her poetry. Here’s “Please bless”: