While glam tends to be on the fringiest of fringes in the musical world nowadays, it’s still alive and evolving along with the march of trends. There are still plenty who channel its glittering, swaggered influence both visually and sonically. Saint John artist Ava Strange is one of those aforementioned torch-bearers, and he has cranked up the freaky-deaky hypnotic vibes to 11 with his latest EP Expecting.
Recorded at Ocean Floor in Halifax during the summer of 2020, Strange calls ‘Expecting’ “the most ambitious group of songs to come from this project yet.” While Franc Lopes of Ocean Floor handled recording and mastering, Strange played every instrument across the five-track EP and mixed each track. Along with the captivatingly vintage album art, as well as the use of Monty Python-esque photograph animation and repurposed Betty Boop footage, Strange clearly had a unified vision in approaching this album that echoes the gestalt of glam’s history.
Musically, “Expecting” is a comfortably strange affair. It has the wavery energy of modern psych-rock and glam, buzzing with the tense but rippling timber of Thee Oh Sees. The guitar work is the focal point of much of the mix, combining wide, tremolo-laden waves of chords with jittery, high-end licks. The entire spectrum reverberates in and out of each other, making an uneasy and hypnotic pool of colour. And while at times this can make Strange’s vocals get lost in the flow, the sonic-whole gets its point across.
Tracks like “The Same” show a strong sense of balance in the inherently off-kilter style, the rhythm matching the filtered waves, Strange’s voice sitting in its sweet spot amidst the funhouse groove. But the standout piece is “Want,” which first wields a sense of menace that was displayed in opener “Home” before launching into a marching tempo for the choruses, then finally building into a joyous romp of energy for the ending.
Ava Strange harnesses the glitter and oddity of glam well on Expecting. While thoroughly modern in its execution, the core of the endeavour is filled with those same delightfully eccentric sensibilities as the roots Strange taps into. There is such a strong sense of style and creative vision tied into this project, and it is clear that Strange has a vibrant path in mind for this project.