by Taylor Ruckle (@TaylorRuckle)
“Come in, come in,” Seth Flynn beckons on “Late Spring,” over bare, palm-muted guitar. “Where have you been hiding? / Oh, compassion, let it in now.” The song hits halfway through Fictorian Era//Bedroom Pomp, his all-acoustic sophomore record as One’s A Crowd, and it finds Flynn lamenting the cutthroat, profit-driven ways of the world. Then he hears the knock at his door, and he shifts from minor to major chords with relief. “Come in, come in.” Flynn’s greeting carries such sincerity, it cuts through the symbolic conceit of the song; as he metaphorically welcomes the concept of compassion to heal the world’s ills, he also welcomes you, the listener, like an old friend who’s come to visit him in the depths of his ennui. It’s a moment I keep returning to–one standout on a record that’s always quick with a melancholy hug.
Though he’s currently based in Seattle, Flynn developed that personal songwriting touch in the course of thirteen years with Northern Virginia’s own powerhouse indie trio The Duskwhales. Since the three started performing together in high school, they’ve turned their love of The Beatles and The Doors into four LPs and three EPs-worth of bright and shiny psychedelic pop ornamented with triple harmonies, ripping keyboard runs, and sterling 1960’s hooks. As long as I’ve been going to shows, they’ve been one of the most fun live bands in the area. In 2015, they even backed up Will Toledo (just before Car Seat Headrest signed to Matador), but they’ve never quite gotten the recognition they deserve as one of the DC suburbs’ best-kept secrets.
Fictorian Era strips the Duskwhales style to the studs and washes it in a gentle, lo-fi hiss. Flynn whispers the songs like you just caught him in the back of the van in the Jammin Java parking lot, strumming to himself and saving his voice for a show (“Listen to this album through headphones–it’s shy,” says his current Bandcamp bio). Nothing distracts from the flowery chord progressions and angelic harmonies at the record’s heart. On the short songs in particular, like the minute-and-a-half “Before The Earth Holds Me Too Close,” Flynn weaves his few delicate sounds with the casual precision of a practiced craftsman, and they come out like gorgeous lacework. So gorgeous, in fact, it defies comparison; on “What Happiness Is This?” his falsetto rings with an otherworldly vibrato, more like a theremin than a human voice.
“Oh, I’m smiling / Ain’t joy strange?” he peals at the end of that track. Fictorian Era looks toward life’s big, metaphysical questions, but just as often finds deceptively small answers. What’s it all about, in the end? Don’t overthink it, or you might miss out on the joy of a cup of tea, or a late night drive to clear your mind, or an unexpected visit from a friend when compassion seems furthest away. Flynn preaches a transcendental uncertainty (“the mysteries of love are best unknown,” he sings on “Forever A Guess”) and in such a lovely group of songs, it isn’t hard to get there with him. “Every day has a purpose, and you’ll find it,” he reassures on “There’s Still Death.” That sounds grandiose, but Fictorian Era makes the case that purpose might be nothing more or less than being nice and making something pretty.