Scott Hirsch

Long running RSTB fave Scott Hirsch rounds up a crew of friends and contemporaries for a record that soothes the itch of his past couple of albums. Coating the JJ-boogie of Windless Day and Lost Time Behind the Moon in amber, Hirsch soul searches this time around, sending ripples of resolution through the copper coils. It’s a record that’s been lost and found, beaten and buoyed. Co-produced and co-written with Daniel Wright, the record finds Hirsch pulling the brim of Americana down low against the sun, simmering his songs in something a bit more expansive, a pop album that can’t fully shake the desert dust. Recorded right in the nerve center of the classics’ cultural crosswinds, Sausalito’s famed Record Plant (now 2200 Studios), the ghosts of the ‘70s seem particularly infused into the record.

Scott adorns the album with soaring choral voices, humid sax lines, sunlit steel, and languid guitars, but he’s not one to let the past lock him in. The album’s just as apt to let synth spill into the seams as it is to let rhythm box beats kick dust among the drums. With it’s weathered wood veneer, the album carves its own caricatures of the classics. Between lost faith, bad luck, and broken hearts, the record recounts los perdidos — the lost ones. There’s no map for the protagonist here, no way back, but maybe love’s the light in the tunnel. Can’t hurt to follow some beacon during a blackout, eh? It’s one of Scott’s most personal records, a record that’s not afraid to let its scars slip out of the sleeve. Years of midnight ramble have led us into the wilds, Hirsch leads the listener back into the sun.

Support the artist. Buy it HERE.