by Joe Gutierrez (@phantomshred)
On Tall Ladders, Nashville’s Trevor Nikrant—one third of singer-songwriter power trio Styrofoam Winos—creates a carousel of musical rooms, each with different prismatic wallpaper patterns and esoteric furniture, zany family portraits adorning the walls. The subjects of Nikrant’s songs talk like people you might know. They drip with an eerie familiarity, the murky memory of who they are becoming clearer the more and more you listen. Stories unfurl across the expanses of these songs, ambiguous and dramatic. When layers are peeled back, the perspective of the puppetmaster becomes more apparent; we get an impression of the way Nikrant witnesses and reacts to living in the 21st century. Many of the songs play as if on a loop, scoring grainy footage of rain-drenched backroads and flickering street lamps.
Nikrant cut his production and composition chops making a few records of experimental sound art, ambient music, and field recordings before diving into traditional songwriting records; that practice and attention to detail shows. The depth and gravity of the production recalls the syrupy grandiosity of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. Nikrant is adept at building a world within each song. Verses and choruses aren’t so much repeated as evolved, transforming and shimmering to reflect whatever message comes across next. Reverb serves each song with an all-encompassing shroud of mystery and jubilance.
“Panic @ the Cafe” starts as if pulling back the tab on a severely shaken can of seltzer, sputtering into chaotic foam and dissolving as it streams down a driveway. Nikrant’s subterranean vocals inject the track with heft and push, some weird morphing of doo wop and a B-52s trademark. After a woozy tempo change he croons, “Aren’t you suspicious of the grip that you have on the wind?,” an ethereal way of turning a weather channel broadcast into a late night noir. Groovy bass adds a head-bobbing swagger that gets drenched with rocket fuel electric guitar distortion.
“Put Me In The Movies” is perhaps the song most indebted to David Berman, an influence felt more strongly on Nikrant’s previous full-length Living in the Kingdom. A country and western number scraped from the sidewalks of Nashville alleyways, the song is an ode to friendship and care, fate and fortune. Rattlesnake egg shaker and springy synth open a void, propulsive and wide. The album’s centerpiece is the nearly eight minute sprawling, melodic wasteland “Dead Skin,” both noir and Western with instrumental flourishes conjuring up the psychedelia the Beatles painted with all over Magical Mystery Tour.
“We Need You For Our Plan” serves up the plot of a sci-fi horror flick over flickering finger-picked acoustic guitar and skittering cymbals, kick drum and tambourine pulsing beneath, ghostly slide guitar hanging like a tattered curtain in the breeze. “Slow Notion” eases into a mellow float, sparse drum machine and tambourine coursing through the vein of an inhalant horn and twinkling guitar. The song sounds dark, haunted, like some grimy message unearthed from a time capsule in a swamp. Yet there’s something so sweet and tender in the melody delivery of lines like, “Maybe we can get something together/My brother.” “Little Window,” with organ and drum machine, sets out like a paper boat embarking on a rainwater gutter adventure across the city. The lonesome whine of a raspy harmonica substitutes the vicious guitar solo outro you might mind in a traditional indie rock number.
Tall Ladders is the singular vision and work of a new generation’s singer-songwriter, mining the rich past of American greats, from Harry Smith’s folk collections to ‘60s LA kaleidoscopic pop to ‘90s ragged indie rock. Nikrant makes characters in songs deliver lines as uncannily as you’d expect them to sound in real life. It’s not easy to make out exactly what the songs are about; the lyrics are cryptic and hazy, bursting snapshots per line. It’s a good thing the answers aren’t always easy. Tall Ladders is the kind of art that can jumpstart your imagination, introduce a little wonder and awe to your brain.