Smaller Hearts returns with “Cloud Cover,” their latest in beat-happy danceable tracks since their release of their self-titled debut album last year. With their new single husband and wife duo Kristina Parlee (The Maynards/The Reference Desk) and Ron Bates (Orange Glass/The Memories Attack) saunter through their lyrics with such determined ambiguity that, for better or worse (mostly better), it sounds as though they’re advocating for cheerful nihilism.
Building on the themes of their last album, Smaller Hearts continues their soundtrack hazy summer nights, with dream-pop inspired beats a la Stereolab and Postal Service. Lyrically, and spiritually, Smaller Hearts delves into the fleeting nature of our existence. It might emphasize how quickly summer passes, but all the more reason to enjoy it.
“Like a lot of our songs, it came out of just playing with different synth textures; our first record kind of had a ‘sound’… one we really liked,” explains Bates, “but when we started writing after that, we deliberately avoided some of the timbres and instruments that we used heavily on that record. We really liked a kind of scratchy synth sound, it reminded us a bit of scratching a pick on guitar strings.
“‘Cloud Cover’ was kind of the most ‘indie rock’ sounding of the songs we were writing—it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to play it on guitar/bass/drums—so it seemed like this scratchy faux-guitar synth sound was a good match”
Bates says that, as per their usual process, the lyrics for “Cloud Cover” were written last. Instead the beats take a heavy priority, with a side of melody. It’s the recipe for an upbeat dance party.
Unfortunately, you won’t be able to catch that dance party in person anytime soon. The band may be producing new material, but the challenges of performing it live proved to difficult to the point of being unpalatable.
“After our first record was finished, we started rehearsing the songs with an eye towards playing a few shows. What started to become obvious, though, was that in order to pull those songs off live, we would either need a lot more people in the band, prerecorded backing tracks, or to make the songs sound very different than on the record,” says Bates.
“We didn’t really like any of those options, plus there is the problem of people playing keyboards onstage being kind of visually boring. So long story short, we decided that instead of spending time and effort on a live show that we weren’t going to be happy with, we would direct that same time and effort into immediately going back into writing and recording mode with an eye towards making a new LP. ‘Cloud Cover’ is the first song to come out of those recordings.”
And to be honest, this might just be the type of music best enjoyed during a free-for-all dance solo, punctuated with some expressive dashboard drumming. So we’ve got that to look forward to. Might as well dance like no one is watching.