New York, NY (Top40 Charts) On the heels of his most recent release, My Time,
Rubber Band Gun (the project of producer, engineer, and multi-talented performer,
Kevin Basko) presents yet another instrumentally brazen single off his forthcoming LP, Cashes Out, a heartfelt anthem entitled Be Together, via Talkhouse.
In essence, the track is utterly feel-good from a musical standpoint, chiming in with upbeat, keys-heavy melodies and exuberant, starry-eyed background fuzz. With the addition of impassioned vocal delivery and layers of harmony, it's an earworm in the making, a track that's almost impossible to avoid swaying along to.
As with his previous releases, though, it additionally presents Basko in a revealing light, as if he's stood in front of his audience without anything to hide. And to him, that's exactly the point - he isn't afraid to let part of himself go in the process of writing something new. Here, he puts his heart on the line, expressing his take on the universal desire for closeness, expressing that, in his case, not being with that other person makes him feel as though he might explode. Needless to say, it's intense, but all-too-real.
As Basko wrote of the track in Talkhouse piece, "'Be Together' is being hypnotized by hypotheticals. It's playing basketball with balled up love notes and missing every one. It's the cheesiest Disney movie with the most unsatisfying ending; How To Save Your Heart, cookie-cutter type stuff. It's the feeling a torch song gives you, but pulled out of your speakers and staring back at you. Unrequited-keep-you-up-at-night-day-dreaming kind of love that follows and haunts you like that Owen Wilson horror movie from the '90s. I think Catherine Zeta Jones was in it, it's called The Haunted or something. I'll fact check this later. Point being is, it sticks on you and comes up in press pieces years later. Spooky."
Basko released more albums in 2019 than most artists do in their entire career. The New Jersey indie rocker released handfuls of records in the first seven years under the moniker
Rubber Band Gun - not to mention producing, engineering, and performing with everyone from Eric Slick to the Lemon Twigs. But when Basko's friend and collaborator Jonathan Rado of Foxygen quipped that he should release 25 albums in a single year, the
Rubber Band Gun 25 sprang to life. And at the heart of that diverse collection of records is Cashes Out (due November 2 via Earth Libraries), a record that not only stands as the first vinyl release for the project, but also showcases the dazzling and dizzying heights that
Rubber Band Gun psych-tinged bedroom rock can reach.
