by Taylor Ruckle
I have a decompression routine for those extra long, extra cold work nights, and it usually involves mint tea, ambient rain sounds, and cueing up a calm-down album--sometimes jazz or trip hop, but usually some sufficiently moody indie rock. So I appreciate that on “Shut” by 13 Necklace, Danny Evans sets the mood for me. The last track from the New York City artist’s frosty, autumnal record On and Off checks all my boxes, opening with the patter of raindrops and thick acoustic guitar plucking before the drum machine comes washing in. Remember in the old days when you’d buy an off-brand MP3 player and it’d come pre-loaded with a few songs? This album should come as a pack-in bonus with beanies that are also headphones (you know, on an included SD card or something--the mechanics of this aren’t important).
In the past, Evans has released music with QUEDADA, Zen Rockstar, Great Plains, and others, spanning emo, doom metal, and post-rock, but always with a focus on experimental noise. 13 Necklace started as a solo project in conjunction with his not-for-profit label and artist collective Metaphorest, and left to his own devices, Evans leans more toward slacker rock in the lineage of Alex G, only taken to a hazier, gazier place. Unlike his other bands projects, On and Off is shaped like a set of songs with lyrics, hooks, and all, but the atmospheres reign supreme--drums smeared in astigmatism blur, melodies mimicking the detuned glide of the guitars, vocals processed into obscurity and back. Don’t get me wrong; there are songs here, and the record is tuneful enough to keep them moving, but the production is where it really sings, especially when Evans leans hard into the lo-fi on “Burgeoning,” which warps and wobbles directly into the spectral piano instrumental “Hill Song.”
Evans is clearly an artist who thinks a lot about words. If you dig through his delightfully 90s-styled website, you can find samples of his prose writing and even an essay about postmodern philosophy and Paradise Lost. That said, you may have to come back and ask me in a year what any of these songs are actually about. In the meantime, I’m happy to hold this album like a cup of too-hot gas station coffee and breathe in the steam. Come for the catchy opener “Mangled Bird,” stay for the windburned warmth that carries through to the end.