by Alex Reindl (@oldjoychicago)
Chicago has an incredibly vibrant and active underground music scene. The city of broad shoulders is full of musicians constantly working, practicing, writing and performing, humming with the harmonies of a thousand different artists. Almost every night of the week there are shows at one of the many small bars with back room stages, or at someone’s apartment with PA’s in the living room or the basement and a small semi-circle of devoted listeners standing as if in prayer. There is a unique culture and work ethic to Chicago bands, a definite “work-is-its-own-reward” mentality that causes artists to keep making, even when there’s not much money to be had, or even wider recognition to be scraped from the back pages of Bandcamp. Sick Day is one of those hard working bands, and they also happen to be fronted by a thoughtful and introspective songwriter who isn’t afraid of being brutally honest with herself, or with you. “You were right, people don’t wanna die, they’re afraid of running out of time,” Olivia Wallace sings with a haunting lilt on Sick Day’s debut record Love Is A State Of Mind, simultaneously describing humanity at large as well as the scene she came up in. She is a visual artist and songwriter who has been active in Chicago for long enough to know how it feels to work.
Fear is a consistent theme on Love: fear of running out of time, fear of not being good enough, fear of what you’ll say, what you’ll do, as well as what you haven’t said and haven’t done. Yet I would not call the record “fearful.” It has a definite and concrete confidence for being a debut record, bolstered by the consummate musicianship of Ryan Donlin and Robby Kuntz, two other hardworking Chicago musicians who rounded out the band on the album, playing guitar/bass and drums respectively. The songs range from Weezer-esque hard pop-rock (such as the truly infectious “Stars Shining Over Me”) to more twee inflected acoustic guitar numbers that certainly aren’t “ballads,” but are instead charming (sometimes frighteningly honest) ruminations on relationships and the battle between how we see ourselves and how we’re actually seen by those we do (and don’t) care about.
Album opener “Meet Me At The Park” is one of the latter, in which droning finger-picked electric guitar and a keyboard create a peaceful trance as Wallace sings “meet me at the park where we can play a game of baseball and I’ll accidentally touch your arm.” It’s a song about the charming and innocent side of falling in love, the side that is more often that not on display at the very beginning of a relationship, or maybe even before one even starts. The term “puppy love” comes to mind. It makes sense that it’s the first song on the album as well, in some ways the record can be viewed in order as the different states one goes through during a love affair, finally realizing by the end that “love is a state of mind and you can’t lose what you can’t find.” There is a whole journey in between however, as any lover knows, full of ups and downs. In the case of Sick Day that also includes songs that will get stuck in your head at least as easily as that certain person you can’t get off your mind.
The arrangements on the record are simple but elegant, all of them have Wallace’s voice front and center. There are some really nice touches as well, like the haunting background vocals in “Little Voice Inside,” or the strings in the title track that closes the album. The record as a whole sounds fantastic, all the more impressive for being recorded at a friend’s house. Curran Chapman did a great job engineering it and seems to have created an environment where everyone felt comfortable being vulnerable enough to sound honest while singing, not always an easy feat. It’s even better in the case of Sick Day, because emotional honesty is one of the stand out points of the record. Wallace doesn’t really sugarcoat the way she feels. She can be clever, but she’s never cloying and all the lyrics have the bitter ring of truth to them. Every song manages to feel personal and also universal, close enough to hit home in a truthful way, wide enough to hit home for all of us. As a songwriter you can’t ask for much more than that.
“Stranger At A Party” reminds me of so many living rooms late at night surrounded by unfamiliar faces, and the words would be exactly what I would have needed to hear in a situation like that. It’s the cheerful other side of the coin to Elliott Smiths social-anxiety ridden “No Name #1,” also about being alone at a party. “I don’t know who you are but next time bring your guitar, I’d like to hear your music some day,” she sings, an affirmation to everyone whose every thought is a ricochet. “It’s Not Gonna Work Out” is a song about defiant acceptance that sounds like a chilly fall day, the kind you have to go out into even if you’d rather stay home where its warm. “Free” feels like going on a date with someone, and the strange thing is it really does make you feel like you’re there. “Lets go, let’s go to the bar, I wanna have a drink / Sometimes it gets so hard trying to be someone smart, always having to think,” she sings in the first verse, and by the second you’re following her to a playground behind the bar to swing on the swing set there late at night after all the actual children have gone home. It may come off as sappy or cloying but it doesn’t feel that way while you’re listening. It’s not overly sentimental, it’s just real. The honesty and forthrightness of the feelings and the casual and laconic delivery prevents the tone from feeling maudlin. These songs may have been drawn from Wallace’s own experience, but they also feel like things that have happened to me, and it makes it all the more powerful.
Love Is A State Of Mind is a record to listen to when you need to remind yourself that nothing and no one is perfect, and you don’t have to be perfect to be good. The full-band numbers bring an infectious energy to Olivia Wallace’s interesting melodies which balances well with the sparse and evocative arrangements of the acoustic songs. The real meat of the record is in the strength of the songwriting and the honest and clear writing and singing voice of Olivia herself as she charts a journey from the beginning to the end of a relationship through the dark sea of insecurity. She understands that our failures make us stronger and that our weaknesses make us wiser. It definitely helps that the music is as catchy as it is, unintentional life lessons always go down a bit easier with a decent soundtrack.