“There’s nothing for you to talk about/So you’d better get thinking”
Recently, I’ve been sound tracking my upper saloon bus commutes with Buí’s latest release Talking to the Walls. It perfectly encapsulates that listless limbo; watching the world go by while you’re lost inside your own.
Josh Healy is constantly thinking about thinking here, an uncomfortable state rendered comfortable by the group’s hallmark indie-folk sound. Awesomely efficient guitar hugged by warm synths, it’s Elephant 6-y with class local charm.
The collective effort gets to shine especially on ‘I Have to Swim’, where synth player Adam Sloan and rotating drummer Amy Nolan take the vocal lead. Their harmony lifts what is probably the heaviest song here to truly touching territory (also, big fan of the resurrection/reinvention of the synth line from an old single).
Of course, whether it’s a crushing full band track (;A Conversation About Punk’) or one of Josh’s fabulously fingerpicked solo quests, Side A’s analogue production from Julie McLarnon sounds so organic and just wonderfully alive! More and yet, it travels seamlessly into those produced mainly by Josh at home on Side B. The sequencing is so spot on even the couple of covers fit like lego and, thematically, sound entirely Buí’s own.
Bookending tracks ‘Walls’ and ‘Stormy Weather’ both show a similar preoccupation with the past and/or wary optimism for the future one experiences when overthinking. At least personally after listening, I’ve gleaned that it’s not the end of the world to miss the present, or miss your stop, now and then.
