New Minnesota Music Round-up: Moody noir tones from Charlie McCarron
Also: anguished folk from Paul Spring and Mankato punk from The Thirsty Giants
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New Minnesota Music Roundup is a bimonthly collection of new releases by Minnesota musicians or musicians with strong Minnesota connections. We focus on music that might otherwise fly beneath the radar, including — but not limited to — folk, blues, country, experimental and jazz.
Know any new Minnesota music that you want to share? Let us know here.
‘The Fishing Hat Bandit Soundtrack’ by Charlie McCarron
Released May 25, 2024
There is a moment in the film “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” when the main character, played by Jason Segel, explains his work as a composer for a crime television show: “It’s just tones. Just dark, ominous tones,” he says.
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That’s also what composer Charlie McCarron offers in his soundtrack for the 2024 documentary “The Fishing Hat Bandit.” He gives us moody, orchestral swirls of propulsive harmonic chords and stabbing strings, sometimes sounding like a minimalist composer scoring a noir film, getting too excited and suddenly going maximalist.
It’s a great score, but also fantastically interesting, for two reasons. First of all, “The Fishing Hat Bandit” is a great subject for a documentary. In the 2000s, John Whitrock robbed 23 Minnesota banks over 18 months, sometimes wearing his signature fishing hat, and recently he has frequently been in attendance for screenings of his documentary, and I can’t imagine anything more exciting.
Secondly, this soundtrack was not the only release McCarron offered at the end of May. Instead, beginning at midnight May 24, he went through his back catalog and released one album every hour for 24 hours, and it’s a dazzling variety: collaborations with puppeteers, video game scores and songs based on the writings of Lord Tennyson.
This is the sort of musical extravaganza that once upon a time would have attracted a lot of attention, but we are so overwhelmed with content that it seems to have passed without comment, swept under by the deluge of digital musical releases on the permanent tsunami of streaming audio that is the internet.
Well, let’s pause a moment and take notice: McCarron’s work is available here. Dive in.
‘River Flows Two Ways’ by Paul Spring
Released May 24, 2024
Paul Spring lives in New York, but he hails from St. Cloud, and while I would compare him most directly to the anguished British folksinger Nick Drake, his music is also somehow very Minnesotan.
He’s got the thick, lyrical, arpeggiated guitar sound of Drake, as well as Drake’s high, syrupy voice. But Spring’s nature-soaked lyrics evoke the sorts of lakes and high grasses and sun-baked elm and basswood of his home state. (He told MPR News producer Gretchen Brown he is part of a Midwestern expatriate community, and his music references that.)
This is an album pitched at the intersection of melancholy and nonchalance, like the only thing one can do with heartbreak is strum a guitar slowly on a patio and sing in a handsome falsetto. “I’m happy, I’m happy,” he tells us in the song “No Doom, No Gloom,” but it’s impossible to believe him, and his lyrics strongly suggest he knows he is lying.
‘Live On Shuffle Function's Pledge Drive A-Go-Go’ by The Thirsty Giants
Released May 21, 2024
The Thirsty Giants describe themselves as “intergenerational basement punk,” but I don’t think that’s specific enough: They’re Mankato intergenerational basement punk. It’s not well remembered, but Mankato used to be an epicenter of the genre, and this band is doing their best to keep the fire burning: This is their second album this year.
The first, released in January, was a studio album called “THIRST and MISERY.” Maximum Rock and Roll declared the album to be “juvenile,” an accurate if unfairly dismissive description of a recording that demonstrates genuine creativity in its urge to shock.
“Live On Shuffle Function” is a live recording, partially drawn from “THIRST” and recorded in a literal garage, and I like it more. It’s marvelously noisy, built around frantically strummed three-chord punk riffs and the sneering but melodic sensibility of garage rock. “I killed Sid Vicious,” singer Holden Perron cries out at one point. Say what you will about Mankato punk rock: It’s not afraid to be bold.
