The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Every Tuesday, the Sounding Board is a space for a short-ish review of a recent-ish release and conversations about new-to-you music. We’ll get things started with a write-up about a newer, likely under-heard album, and invite you to share your music musings in the comments.
It’s hard being lonely, and it’s infinitely more difficult, depressing and demeaning to feel alone on one of the days designated for reaffirming our ties to the special people in our lives and humanity at large.
That deep, pitiful ache is the connective tissue of the new Gumshoes album, ironically titled Happy New Year. Like each of UK-based singer-songwriter Sam Sparks’ last few albums as Gumshoes, the LP’s release coincides with the arrival of the new year, and it is a concept album.1 For 2026, Sparks leaned heavily into both bits, penning nine tunes from nine different points of view inspired by the same central thought: “I must be the world’s loneliest son of a bitch.”
Gumshoes’ brand of oddball indie pop is so brisk, cheerful, layered and catchy that the potentially maudlin or oppressive motif mostly serves as just the weight necessary to keep the shimmering mylar balloon music from totally drifting away. It’s an emotional core with some heft that cuts through the treacle when the music gets slightly overcooked or too cute by half. When the classical guitar sound of “Spinster”‘s initially spare arrangement is joined by quivering theremin, before glistening electronic noise washes over everything, the perspective of an aging and embittered asexual person offers a much-appreciated life preserver. A reluctant murder cultist’s words ground the twinkling keys and falsetto backing vocals on “Die Pig Die.” A detective’s solipsistic paranoia and a big-city intern’s disillusionment with urban life counterbalance the album’s first and second songs, respectively.
The characters have heightened foibles, but their feelings are written realistically. On Happy New Year, Gumshoes mostly uses big, bright sounds, self-harmony, and ultra-sticky melodies to sketch strange characters and tell dark stories wrapped around a relatable kernel. It’s a compelling approach to madcap songcraft with a lot in common with Kevin Barnes’ The Gay Parade-era work with of Montreal.2 However, Barnes and friends were never as disciplined as Gumshoes at staying on message. Every song, without exception, introduces a new character unknowingly bound in time and in turmoil with the LP’s other denizens.
The end result is a kaleidoscopic depiction of despondency, alienation and misanthropy that ends in a lengthy vision of apocalypse while the album’s title rings out. Musically and lyrically, it’s all a bit over the top, but it works. In the Bandcamp description for Happy New Year, Sparks hinted that the next Gumshoes LP might be both a “messy finding-yourself type record about air travel” and not ready in time for New Year’s Day 2027.3 If Happy New Year marks the end of a charming indie tradition, the series is wrapping up with its most overtly thought-provoking and overall strongest entry.
Happy New Year‘s central observation that isolation, whether emotional or physical, and holidays are a tough mix isn’t impressively insightful, the eclecticism of its cast of characters and sounds achieves profundity. The lonely sadness that stalks these songs might manifest in singular — or at least atypical — ways for their subjects, but by showing the feeling nine different ways, Happy New Year underscores the universality of its self-pitying premise. The desk-tapping, hum-along chamber pop that accompanies the sentiment also doesn’t hurt.
About the writer
Ben Hohenstatt
Ben Hohenstatt is an Alaska-based dog owner who moonlights as a music writer and photographer.
For more information, consult your local library or with parental permission visit his website.
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The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
The Kids In The Hall, Season Four, Episode Nineteen
“He’s just a bike courier working on two hours sleep.”
“Hey! I’m vulnerable here!”
“I’m Canadian. It’s like American but without a gun.”
“Yes, you are berry white.”
“No, Barry White is black man.”
“And then he farts and he thinks it’s funny!”
“Aw, come on, I only drink when I feel like gettin’ drunk!”
Absolutely incredible character design in the sketch model artist scene.
“Language is a virus!”
“Well, I certainly didn’t mean to infect anyone…”
“Well, I’m sorry, naked fat black crippled f*gs are hard to find.”
“Anybody who stays is obviously a racist!”
“Oral sex is important to a man’s pride.”
“It’s the friggin’ Village People!”
“Are most angels are gay?”
“Well, let’s say most of them used to be waiters.”
The Practice, “What Child Is This?” – The trial of a man accused of killing his stepdaughter – and now known to have been sleeping with her, a lot – goes poorly, so Bobby desperately accuses the mother of the crime. Not much we have not seen before, but very much ties to the season’s overall arc of “Bobby is losing his moral compass.: Indeed Judge Hiller calls Bobby out for it, and even says Bobby should have been convicted for William Hinks’s murder. But hey, he’s still the star here. And then the suspect is cleared but we learn he was also sleeping with his other stepdaughter. (I assume he is arrested for statutory rape, but who knows?) Also, Ellenor gives birth with unnecessary drama. Helen serves as her birthing coach. Helen was present at both births this season, but at no point considers quitting the law to be a midwife.
Frasier, “The Mother Load,” part two – After Daphne’s brother runs off to California, she and Niles are now stuck with her long term. Even though, as far as I can tell, neither has a visa. Well, they’re white so it should be okay. I can see that Daphne’s mom was added to shake things up, but she’s not very interesting. Meanwhile, Frasier’s unfriendly neighbor gets his revenge by hanging a huge American flag from his balcony, and over Frasier’s. And there’s not a lot Frasier can do because it’s 2002 and telling people to stop flying the flag is letting the terrorists win! I wonder if this was the first time that anyone outside of The Boondocks dared to make fun of the obsessive demonstrative “patriotism” following 9/11, but it is still quite effective (and totally clear that Cam Winston doesn’t care one bit about anything but getting his parking spot back).
Stranger Things, “The Vanishing of Will Byers” and “The Weirdo on Maple Street”
I don’t know if I’ll do regular write-ups on this or not; not sure I have anything interesting to say. My wife and I watched the first three seasons and never got around to going further, but with the show wrapping up recently, we decided to go back and do a full series rewatch/watch. S1 was one of her hyperfixations for a while, so she’s seen it maybe a dozen times, but not for a while–I feel like her notes on this would be much cooler than mine.
These episodes feel a little bit grimmer than the show would usually go later on–not atypical for a first season–and also a tad more “generically pulling from the ’80s,” in that certain elements, like the bullies, feel like they’re there because Stephen King always had bullies. (In “The Weirdo on Maple Street,” at least, these bullies are almost hilariously bad at bullying–it’s like maybe the Duffers didn’t want to go too far in having their young actors viciously targeted, even in a scene, which makes sense on a moral level but does admittedly make for a weaker story.) But the strengths of the child and teen cast are already apparent, and the show already has a gift for the occasional iconic visual. Even if we haven’t gotten to the Christmas lights yet, Eleven flipping over the board to illustrate the Upside Down is great.
Sentimental Value – one of those European arthouse dramas that feels exactly like a European arthouse drama should and delivers the expected pleasures (slow pacing, good performances, fractured families, emotions) but without really offering any surprises. I enjoyed it but I’m not sure which parts of it, if any, will stick in my head – maybe the sweet “why is ONE of us messed up?” conversation between the two sisters, or the slightly cheeky parts where an emotional scene is revealed to be taken from the play within the movie rather than the narrative itself. Or – most likely – the funny birthday party scene in which grandpa Stellan Skarsgard gives his grandson some of the most inappopriate DVDs imaginable.
What did we listen to?
”Shelter From The Storm (Take 1)”, Bob Dylan
https://youtu.be/FElsc4q9X3k?si=kLKsJKlMg30-cX_N
Style and Form
This is off the More Blood, More Tracks album, and I actually prefer it to the album version (which is still good). I like the rougher sound to this and the piano really adds to the song. This is also my second-favourite Dylan song, where every single line is the best line ever; nothing quite sums up tragedy like “If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born”. DylanChords has a great essay on the album as a whole and an argument that, whatever you think of individual songs, the final album is far improved over the original concept recorded in New York: https://www.dylanchords.com/16_bott
The song on paper has that typical Dylan boxiness that comes when he writes only verses, but oddly enough it ends up sounding very different depending on how he plays it; the live electric ‘76 version is the boxiest, and sometimes that’s what you want to go for, and there’s a live version from the 90’s that sounds incredibly, delightfully slippery (mainly because he comes at the melody from the weirdest possible angle). This is closer to that 90’s version; slippery without that taking your attention completely.
Melody and Harmony
The harmony is basic to the point of being barebones; I would describe it as very pop, and I wouldn’t describe it as bad simply because it doesn’t sound trite or boring to my ear (compare to, like, the harmony of “Sugar, Sugar”). The melody is a little more interesting to me; it sounds like a riff on a basic blues melody, rising and falling both within and without each line – that is to say, each individual line rises and falls slightly, and each line is slightly higher than the previous, aside from the final line which falls back down. Very fun to listen to.
Arrangement
There’s a very cheery arrangement, with what I think is Dylan on guitar (and, obviously, vocals and harmonica), a bass guitar, and someone on piano (who I can’t specifically identify) doing what I suspect is an impression of Dylan, if not him specifically ordering a specific performance – the hammering away on the melody despite that being kind of awkward and silly to the ear sounds like something he’d do.
Intro
They just jump into it with an instrumental verse, and everything basically explodes out at once – harmonica, piano plinking away, and of course guitar and bass. I enjoy that Dylan isn’t afraid to risk boring his audience with dedication to a form. I also do enjoy the little count-in.
Verse
Not much to say about this. I do enjoy that he has the slightly unusual A-B-B-A structure, and either way, he’s dedicated to a sudden rise and gradual fall, like a sigh. I suppose the simplicity draws a lot of attention to the complex words.
Instrumental Bridge
I love the halfassed piano version of the melody here, matching the halfassed recreation of the verse chords, and occasionally he throws in his harmonica. It’s short, enough to spice up between the verses – this must be what makes it feel more interesting than the boxier versions but not as weird as the weirder versions.
Final Thoughts
Even outside the refrain literally being about having, ya know, shelter from the storm, this song feels really comforting and even empowering. Our narrator has been through the wars and is taking his rest. Dylan once quipped that all his songs really end with ‘good luck’, and I notice that, for all that his songs go to some weird places, they always seem to end with the narrator making a decision (“I’m going back to New York City, I do believe I’ve had enough”).
The narrator here declares “Beauty walks a razor’s edge, someday I’ll make her mine”, as bold and beautiful a declaration of intent as any, and an interesting thing to follow up a story of misery, suffering, and even humiliation (“Offered up my innocence and got repaid with scorn”). Perhaps this is a more complex riff on “get up in the morning and go back to work”.
The “Suddenly I turned around and she was standing there” bridge is such a capital-R Romantic image as is “Beauty walks a razor’s edge.” Your last paragraph oddly rings true to The Dark Knight. “People are dying, Alfred. What would you have me do?” “Endure.”
There is a playlist that is the complete Grosse Pointe Blank soundtrack, that is everything from the soundtrack album (the first one I ever ran and bought the day after seeing the movie), the second soundtrack album, and the stuff left off both. I don’t know if there is a movie that has a better or more diverse collection of songs.
Wasn’t particularly interested in hearing a podcast about a new movie that I am not sure exists (the aptly named Is This Thing On), so I tried to read the Blank Check transcript. Wow, just as a transcript this one is unhinged. Maybe I DO need to listen. (Also, I could swear I heard Ben’s voice in a commercial not on the show. Is he getting voice work?)
As a fellow member of the Gumshoes-pilled, I also hit up Happy New Year when it dropped. Love Ben’s thoughts here, and I think the “Canary”/”Spinsters”/”Die Pig Die” section is especially strong. (“But one in a million has a habit of rounding to zero” in “Spinsters” especially gets me.) This kind of blend of beautiful, ultra-catchy pop and creative, poignant lyrics with an embedded story-song approach continues to be right up my alley.
1001 Albums, etc. – right, time to get back to this!
Iron Maiden – The Number of the Beast: this was a teenage favourite and I’m delighted to find that it still absolutely rules. I don’t like a lot of metal but classic Maiden has just the right amount of pop hooks, theatrical horror nonsense and harmonised guitar shredding to appeal to me.
Duran Duran – Rio: not one of the 80s bands I consider a favourite, but this was consistently very strong and made me think I’d underrated them a little. I feel like the song “Rio” is one I’ve probably heard enough times for one lifetime but the other singles are still great (particularly Save a Prayer which I haven’t heard in a while) and the album tracks keep up the high standard with some interesting arrangements and melodies.
Violent Femmes – Violent Femmes: I’ve tried getting deeper into these before but they seem to be a band I enjoy most in small doses. “Blister in the Sun” is an all-timer but their scratchy folk-punk vibe grates on me after a while.
Malcolm McLaren – Duck Rock: surprisingly great, I’m not sure how much McLaren actually contributed to it but the mix of African pop music with Trevor Horn production and early hip-hop is a delight. A little tainted by their failure to correctly credit some of the musicians, for sure, but a consistently fun listen.
Def Leppard – Pyromania: at their most anthemic I find Def Leppard a bit of a guilty pleasure, but “Photograph” is the only track here that really scratches that itch. Otherwise it’s stadium bombast without the big hooks and not for me at all.
—
Critical Darlings – checked out the intro episode for the new Blank Check spinoff podcast with Richard Lawson and Alison Willmore taking on awards season. Quite enjoyed it, I’ve never been an Oscar nerd but they’re agreeable hosts and I’ll definitely check out the first proper episode since they’ll be talking about Marty Supreme which is my pick for the best film of 2025 (by quite some distance).
Tried Verdi’s La Traviata and aside from giving some context on a song often used in comedies for ironic counterpoint, it didn’t do a lot for me. Italian operas always feel overly stuffy.
Adventures in musicals: Listened to a deleted Wizard of Oz song “The Jitterbug” and I can see why it was taken out of the movie. The then-contemporary reference would have instantly dated the scene decades later and would’ve slowed things down a bit.
Chess is such a WEIRD concept album/musical – “One Night in Bangkok” is a truly bizarre pop hit, with speak-singing-rapping from the lead singer of Deep Purple and ominous if Orientalist lyrics. It’s very Eighties with the synth-rock and big steel drums. The story also doesn’t make a ton of sense even listening to it, overly explanatory Tim Rice lyrics or no, and there’s a litany of flaws here: asshole American character given a self-pitying origin song, humorless and sarcastic tone, lack of action, etc. and once the sweeping, operatic finale arrives, none of this mattered. Credit to the ABBA guys for coming much closer to opera’s harmonic sophistication and romanticism than Webber ever did working with Rice.
“the lead singer of Deep Purple”
Say what?
I dunno why I thought it was the Deep Purple guy, maybe mixing it up with another guy who was in Jesus Christ Superstar?
I didn’t know either, but I looked it up, and yes– Deep Purple’s lead singer, Ian Gillan, portrayed Jesus on the album; Head portrayed Judas.
But Murray Head isn’t part of Deep Purple; he’s just Murray Head. (Well, and also Anthony Stewart Head’s brother. But in any case, not part of Deep Purple.)
I haven’t done any real focused listening yet this year, but upon reviewing the local station’s countdown, I am irritated that there is music I would’ve been interested in but never heard or even heard of. (How did I just now find out that Spoon released two singles last year?) I also keep hearing 2025 songs I hadn’t heard before, which would be irritating too except that I’ll just hold them over for this year if that’s what I decide to do.
The universe seems to be torturing me. Watching football on Friday I heard “Mystical Magical” twice on the broadcast. Then on Saturday during the NFL games I heard it twice again. I went to the gym, where at least I wouldn’t be able to hear the broadcast if they decided to play it again… And the gym playlist on the PA played, you guessed it, “Mystical Magical.”
Year of the Month update!
Here’s the movies, albums, books, TV, and games from 1985 for you to write about next January.
TBD: Ruck Cohlchez: Tim and/or Fables of the Reconstruction
Jan. 9th: Gillian Nelson: Advice on Lice
Jan. 16th: Gillian Nelson: The Wuzzles/The Gummi Bears
Jan. 19th: Tristan J. Nankervis: The Breakfast Club
Jan. 23rd: Gillian Nelson: The Golden Girls
And coming February 2026, we’ll be looking at 1957, including all these movies, albums, books, TV, yadda yadda.
Feb. 6th: Gillianren: The Story of Anyburg, USA
Feb. 13th: Gillianren: The Truth About Mother Goose
Feb. 20th: Gillianren: Our Friend the Atom
Feb. 27th: Gillianren: Sleeping Beauty’s Castle