It’s 1998. My final year in high school. The grunge era has begun and indie rock bands are emerging onto the Australian scene. Triple J is the radio station of choice and the song ‘Black Umbrella’ caught my attention. I guess the main reason is its Beatles inspired, guitar forward and melodic vocal which still floats my boat to this day. The production on this song feels so timeless, listening to it after 28 years, it doesn’t feel old and I love it jsut as much. And yes, it is incredibly scary to be writing 28 when considering how long ago my high school years were.

One of the things I love about writing this blog is that it brings me back to music, and I realise now that Even were still releasing albums until 2021. In fact the band is still together after forming in March 1994. Their career to date includes 8 studio albums and a tonne of touring both here in Australia and internationally.

‘Black Umbrella’ is from 1998’s Come Again album. I had this album and Free Kicks on CD back in the day. The song begins with guitar, followed closely by drums and bass and we have several bars to enjoy the riff before the vocal comes in.

I got my black umbrella
To shelter me from falling rain
But I forgot to tell her
She can join me and do the same

The song feels laid back which is much of its appeal. It’s not asking too much from you, so you’re happy to just go along with it. The guitar is panned to the left, until the B section, comes in where more guitar joins in on the right. I can’t really call it a chorus, because this song only has two sections which repeat, showing that you really do not need to obsess about your lyricism to create a good song. After years of writing about songs on this blog, I am still floored by how much simplicity works – even though, it’s one of my philosophies (just ask Todd). We also get some simple backing vocals and a well-placed cymbal hit brings us out of the B section back into A.

The intensity hasn’t really built up much and the song just trundles along until the second B section, where the guitars build up a bit and last line “I got more than love to cover you” flows into a drop down, the drums and bass leaving us for a short moment, while the echo of “To cover you” in Ashley Naylor’s smoky falsetto are followed by the drums building up to what turns out to be a big outro. The guitar intensifies, the bass walks around playfully and the vocal ad libs, with some gorgeous layered ‘Aaahs’ to take us to the final drop down of the song as it fades out.

Sometimes nostalgia can be a trap and universe knows that corporations use it to squeeze us for cash, but in this case, looking back at songs we love, is like unearthing a hidden treasure you thought you lost. Its still there, we just need to open our ears.

The post #35 Even – Black Umbrella appeared first on Blank Instrument.

Many of the songs on this blog are those which I’ve come back to time and again. ‘Angel Owl’ is a song I found in 2013 and it’s been on my Bittersweet playlist for years.

I’ve been drawn to bittersweet songs for a long time, but its hard to describe what bittersweet sounds like. In part, the playlist was an attempt to see what unifies these songs. But maybe its more of a vibe than a guitar tone, song structure or lyrical theme.

Angel Owl is from 2013’s Absolute Zero album. Little Green Cars are an Irish indie folk band who began writing songs together in 2008. By 2012 they were signed to the record label Glassnote and touring the US. By 2019 the band broke up, with the members going on to start a new band – Soda Blonde – or pursue a solo career.

‘Angel Owl’ starts with some gorgeously mixed guitars and the riff itself is my favourite feature of the song. The drums and bass come in for a stretch but drop back for the verse. The drums and bass are used as accents under the backing vocals in the verse which are a response to the main vocal line. The backing vocals in this song are amazing and for me are an example of how to use BVs as another instrument.

The verse lyrically fits in the folk genre, painting a picture in the abstract way that folk songs do:

On stormy nights, she waits outside
Her eyes so black, her feathers white
I kick the fire, put out the light
Burning embers cross the sky

Only at dawn
Does my angel sing

I love the dynamics in this song. Tension builds during the verse and by the end of the chorus, the post-chorus smacks you in the face with its gorgeously melodic riff and soaring backing vocals. The second verse keeps the pace up only to drop down during the chorus to allow the post-chorus to soar again. We then circle back to the intro again, with the addition of some sweet “oohs”. The outro is another intense post-chorus which finishes almost sedately on the final chord, which to me sounds like some kind of keyboard or pad rather than a guitar. Which makes me wonder what is buried under all those layers of guitar and vocals, padding out the song. There is mention of a piano and wurlitzer in the album credits?

I’m always amazed by musicians that can craft a song to take you on a journey, more through the musical decisions than the story of the lyrics. As beautiful and descriptive as the lyrics are, I feel like they are not really the point. The point is the music and the song delivers the emotion through its meldodic and harmonic choices.

It’s a song I could listen to again and again and who knows, maybe in another 13 years, I will still be listening.

The post #34 Little Green Cars – Angel Owl appeared first on Blank Instrument.

Gregory Alan Isakov is someone I’ve known about for a while, as I’d d heard his songs in indie folk playlists many times. I don’t think I became a fan until I heard songs from Appaloosa Bones, his 2023 album. ‘Sweet Heat Lightning’ is a beautifully sweet ballad and one of my favourites on the album.

The song fades in, starting with a guitar and some distorted piano, followed by the drums and bass for a few bars before dropping back before the verse starts. This drop-down is used throughout the song before the chorus and post-chorus. There have been a few songs I’ve reviewed on this blog with a drop-down at the end of the chorus. Given that ‘Sweet Heat Lightning’ has the same 4 chords throughout, you need something to differentiate the parts, and this does the job nicely.

In the first verse, the vocals feel subdued and unhurried, and I can hear multiple layers. The song is 4:46, but the lyrics are quite sparse, take the chorus for example:

Sweet heat lightning falls
Blue crack of light, and that’s all
Calling you to sing

Though only 3 lines, it’s packed with sensory language. Just look at the different senses drawn on here: sweet (taste), heat (touch), lightning (sight), blue (sight), crack (hearing), calling (hearing). Being abstract, you could interpret the words in different ways – a lightning storm where the rain doesn’t arrive, a flash of inspiration, a fleeting connection with someone.

In the post-chorus, the song intensifies with the line “Calling you to sing” repeated. This is a different melody to the verse and chorus, with the guitar, a banjo, piano and in the later song, violins all crescendoing in a beautiful dance. The music moves in and out like slow waves. The drums feel splashy in both the cymbals and the toms. All the instruments support the main hook, which is so beautiful.

The song finishes much as it started – vocal, guitar and a piano hidden underneath. Some people know the secret to finishing a song, so people will want to play it again after it’s finished. I think Gregory is one of those people. It’s comforting, sad, beautiful and haunting all at once. I do so hope he plays it in a few weeks when I go to see him.

The post #33 Gregory Alan Isakov – Sweet Heat Lightning appeared first on Blank Instrument.

For most of my life, I didn’t actively listen to instrumental music. I think part of me wondered what the point was when all the action was in the lyric, melody and vocal performance. I’m glad that changed for me, largely in part to Mr F, who does listen to instrumental music and introduced me to artists and styles I’d not heard before. I explored a few playlists when I needed some focus music, stumbling upon ‘Pacific Theme’ some years ago. Taken from 2002’s You Forgot It In People, it’s a nod to Broken Social Scene’s beginnings as an instrumental band. Their lineup has changed over time and resembles a Canadian supergroup with members from Metric, Feist, Stars, Do Make Say Think and others.

We begin with percussion, including bells and other synthetic drum sounds, and a cool electric piano. I struggle to pull out each element as there’s so much going on, and the various tones work so well together. A slow intro builds up to a snare fill before the guitar and drums enter. The guitar is a mainstay of the song, with the electric piano and drums rumbling along in the background.

The next section – the B section, if you will – brings in a flute melody that catches your ear for a bit. That is one of the key features of this song that I love: the combination of different instruments and textures, with nothing overstaying its welcome to keep the momentum going.

There’s a breakdown after the B section, where an acoustic guitar comes to the forefront. Next, a harmonica brings us back to the A section, layering up the guitar parts, which make the song feel expansive. I can hear the bass peeking through here, sounding warm. It’s funny how the bass has been there somewhere all along, but I can’t hear it distinctly until this moment.

The next section (C), changes up the main guitar riff and leads us to another breakdown, which is just drums and the beautiful electric piano. This makes way for a horn section, bringing back the percussion from the intro. There’s a distorted sample of people talking that sounds static-like, which is a nice backdrop.

The B section comes back in with the guitars and horns doing the heavy lifting. It feels like a beautiful ray of sunshine; there’s a tambourine, some more sonic interest with those distorted voices, before breaking down to drums.

When the drums fade away, the voices are all that’s left. This blends into the next song on the album, meant as a seamless transition.

I think this song has a timeless quality to it. It always feels welcoming and interesting, taking you on a journey and introducing you to different elements each time you hear it. Whenever this song comes on in my Instrumentical playlist (instrumental and classical music), it makes me happy and always feels fresh. I hope you find a way to incorporate this song into one of your playlists as I think it might make you happy too.

The post #32 Broken Social Scene – Pacific Theme appeared first on Blank Instrument.

Many of you would have heard about the various boycotts of Spotify in recent years. Some people left when Joe Rogan was paid an obscene amount of money to put his podcast on the platform. Others cite founder Daniel Ek’s affiliation with a military drone technology company. For me, it was probably a combination of these things, but mainly the feeling that listening to music in the app wasn’t enticing anymore. I was following over 500 artists, but was not informed when there was new music. The algorithm was lazy, serving me songs I’d already heard that week instead of choosing from the vast array of music in playlists on my account.

I did a little research and landed on Deezer. There are some questions about their ethics due to their ownership, but these are not as damning as Spotify. With Deezer, at least the app is focused on music. There are no podcasts or audiobooks touted on the front page, trying to stop you from engaging with your music library. While transferring my music library to Deezer, I went through my followed artists, accumulated over 15 years. I removed anyone I wasn’t interested in anymore or who wasn’t producing music. This reacquainted me with new albums from a range of artists, including Marble Sounds.

Marble Sounds is the project of Pieter Van Dessel, a Belgian songwriter and musician. ‘Nothing To Get Over’ is from 2025’s album Core Memory, his 6th album to date.

Immediately, we’re thrown into this ’80s soundscape, with synths, bass and drums. Van Dessel starts singing, with his unique tone and accent. The verse sets up the scene, the end of a relationship, feeling lost, sad and restless. There’s some optimism there, “Not sure where to go but I guess I will figure it out”, almost like this is a temporary state of affairs, rather than a life-defining state. This is reinforced in the chorus, and I really like how it’s not a typical heartbroken breakup song where someone can’t imagine how they’ll carry on.

I think the best way I can describe how this song makes me feel when I hear it and why I love it so much is ‘excited’. The verse and pre-chorus are upbeat, but the chorus feels epic. The drum fill oozes ’80s reverb, ushering in the chorus lyric and a gorgeous backing vocal answering the main line.

There is nothing to get over
There is nothing to get over
I can live my life the way it is
I admit you took a part of it
But nothing to get over

The acknowledgement that life is going on regardless is very relatable. There’s a hint of a tambourine in the chorus, along with an accent (I think a guitar) for the line “the way it is”. I feel like that accent is really distinctive and refreshes your ears before the title comes back. There’s quite a bit of space in the chorus, so it’s pleasing to the ear.

After the chorus, there’s more synth piano and guitar, which leads us back into the verse. Things change up after the chorus with the bridge, which keeps the upbeat and optimistic feel with the guitar playing some loose arpeggios with the lush synth layers. The drop-down chorus brings the synth to the foreground with a lack of drums.

The backing vocals sing us out with two overlapping lines, bringing the oohs back from the chorus. I love a good fade out, and this song does not disappoint.

I hope that if you’ve lost your way and aren’t listening to music much anymore, you can find your way back. You never know when you might find songs that you love.

The post #31 Marble Sounds – Nothing to Get Over appeared first on Blank Instrument.

Some songs are enduring. You can listen to them again and again, and they always make your heart soar and your ears glad. For me, ‘Song For Sundays’ from Luke Ritchie’s 2011 album The Waters Edge is such a song. Looking at its vintage, I think I probably found it when I was regularly listening to albums being reviewed by the For Folks Sake blog. At the time I was living in London, immersing myself in the plethora of amazing indie folk music being made in the early 2010s.

I think the reason why I still love this song, 14 years later, is for 3 main reasons:

1. The lyrics are beautiful and paint a picture of a Sunday morning and an emotional state summed up as “So calm yet so unclear”
2. The vocal performance at the end of the song is filled with intensity and it washes over me like the most beautiful wave
3. The piano is just so darn perfect in both its twinkling sound and its function

We start off slowly with a beautiful acoustic guitar, soon followed by a warm kick drum, before the bass (possibly double bass?) and drums come in proper. I think the word warm sums up the vibe. It sounds like time and care were put into recording these instruments. My own limited recording experience has taught me that how you record something is everything. Mixing and overdubs can only do so much, it can’t fix something that wasn’t right to start with. If you get a nice snare sound or the guitars are mic’d up just right, it makes a huge difference.

Luke’s vocal is clear and warm, with a slight rasp in places throughout the song which gives it character. Setting the scene of waking up on a Sunday morning, I am reminded of one of my own songs ‘Look’, much less poetic than this, where I remark on Sunday morning’s hazy light, with someone next to you.

Once we hit the chorus, the piano kicks in, adding a rhythmic quality with its complex flourishes. The piano continues through the second verse and chorus, where I think I can hear some strings making an appearance. I’m calling it a chorus loosely, as it is more of a refrain. The music in this section builds up to mark our exit from the verse and the melody becomes more legato.

I mentioned loving the imagery in the lyrics and this is illustrated in the second verse, where a moment of drinking water is turned into an adventure:

I wring the tap dry of water –
My little hill-side source –
And then I’ll down a flooded river
In knotted loops and folds
But then I’ll simply lie stranded
Like some bloated corpse
Until you rise me up

The song pulls back after the second chorus/refrain, similar to the first verse. You can also hear the brushes on the drums which is a lovely touch. By the end of the verse and into the refrain, the song becomes a runaway train. All the instruments ratchet up, with Luke belting out the lines, before the song takes a breath and everything winds down to the end. It never fails to give me goosebumps and I can only imagine how satisfying it was to sing.

While I can never realy know someone’s songwriting journey or the path of a song, I can’t help but think that this song wanted to be written, patiently waiting for the final minute where it could soar. As a music lover, these moments are the ones that inspire me to keep going.

While Mr Ritchie hasn’t released a solo album since The Waters Edge, a little searching turned up a career focused on music and technology, with many interesting jobs. More reason to appreciate this album.

The post #30 Luke Ritchie – Song for Sundays appeared first on Blank Instrument.

This month, we’re delving into ‘Can’t Stop The Rain’ from Neal Francis’s 2021 album In Plain Sight. I really love this song, as it has a timeless sound that is just as at home in 2025 as it was in 1975. Leaning into funk, soul, and rock, it’s chock-full of electric pianos, funky guitars, warm bass, and horns.

An interesting fact about the album – it was written and recorded almost entirely in a church where Neal was living at the time, after a relationship break-up. Having struggled with sobriety, he was in the process of owning up to his issues and trying to work on them, instead of feeling like he had to hide everything. I definitely resonate with that, as for a long time I’ve felt a lot of shame about my feelings and always thought I had to push them away. The underlying issue was that I didn’t know how to accept the feelings I didn’t want. I now know that leaning into them is the only way for them to dissipate.

This is another song that is not complicated in terms of chords, using only 4 chords throughout the entire song. To start, we get piano, accented by some kind of organ or electric piano. The beauty of the piano in this instance is taking two chords in the verse and creating a funky riff. A few bars in, and the slide guitar shows up. This is Derek Trucks, a well-known and incredible blues guitarist and singer-songwriter. The groove is good, and it feels uplifting. The drums don’t cut through a lot, which feels like it’s in keeping with the 70s vibe, and there’s definitely a tambourine in there.

The vocal in the verse feels quite laid back, but in the pre-chorus, the music drops back a bit, and you can hear the piano more clearly. When the chorus comes in, it’s with a punch.

And you can’t stop the rain
It’s always coming down
It’s always gonna fall
But you’re not gonna drown

Quite a simple lyric, making it quite a catchy chorus. The words “down” and “drown” are held, which gives your ear a chance to catch up on the words. Think about how much less impact it would have if they were cut short?

There are quite a few instrumental breaks in this song, before the second verse and after the second chorus. This allows the guitar to build up, and I can hear an acoustic guitar panned to the left. There are also some really nice moments where the piano comes through before the final chorus. It gets quite intense at the end – in a good way!

I can also hear some backing vocal lines buried in the mix. The backing vocals are more clear in the live version, which has horns and an 11-piece band. Neal seems to be enjoying himself so much – and his outfit is divine. That kind of band setup is the stuff of dreams.

My takeaways from this song are:

• Simple chord progression
• Good, solid piano riff
• Amazing players
• Space for the music to shine
• Catchy chorus

The post #29 Neal Francis – Can’t Stop The Rain appeared first on Blank Instrument.

A few years back, I found myself drawn to soul music, a genre I hadn’t spent much time exploring before. This is probably off the back of an exploration into instrumental funk while Mr F and I created our collaborative playlist, Funky Ass. ‘Morning in America is the first track on 2019’s American Love Call, and when you read the lyrics for this song, you can see how it fits with the theme.

I find myself drawn to drum sounds quite a lot these days, and this song starts with some seriously crisp drums (love that snare!), before the guitar and piano kick in with a smooth riff. Durand Jones’s slightly raspy vocal begins soon after, and you can hear a tinge of sadness:

It’s still in San Diego
You can hear a baby cryin’
As the trains in New York City
Roll thunder down the line

The teachers rise in Richmond
As they sleep in San Antone
While the harbor lights on Baltimore
Got nurses headed home

It paints a picture of modern America in the early hours. It feels timeless; this could have been written in the 1900s as much as 2019. The verse sets up the chorus quite nicely, where “It’s morning in America, but I can’t see the dawn”. This song was written before the pandemic, and even if things seem to have taken a turn for the worse in America in 2025, we can’t forget that there’ve been problems for a long time. More of these issues are explored in the later verses – incarceration, drugs and racism. These are not easy to solve in our capitalist society, where the people who can help others the most are afraid they might lose something by doing so.

The horns and strings come in during the chorus and continue through the second verse, building up through the second chorus. The first instrumental break gives both instruments a moment to shine. I like the use of space in this song. Not just the arrangement, but with how it’s mixed. The instruments don’t feel like they are competing for space. This song also only uses 3 chords, and it just goes to show how few you need to create an impactful song.

After the third verse, there’s a little break where the drums get a moment on their own, taking us back to the first bar of the intro, a nice palate cleanser before we get to the final chorus and the instrumental outro, where a fuzzy electric guitar wails a lament. You can really hear the pain in the delivery of this song; each element contributes to the feeling of sadness, echoed in a line in the final chorus, “We’re mourning in America”.

As many songwriters use music to process their own personal situation, I find it refreshing that an artist would step back and reflect on what’s going on in their country and be prepared to write about it. There’s a bit of fear around being too political in one’s writing and avoiding the difficult topics. But I also think that music can be an incredibly powerful motivator and an illuminator of truth. Though I also wonder, how many more bands will make songs like these before we see real change in our world.

We can only hope.

The post #28 Durand Jones and the Indications – Morning in America appeared first on Blank Instrument.

In 2023, I added ‘Spell It Out For Me’ to my Liked Songs on Spotify. I’ve been listening to Rogue Valley since the 2010s, as I recognise the album cover of 2011’s False Floors. Being described as Americana, Rogue Valley’s 2023 album, Shell Game, is filled with beautiful guitars, harmonies, and gorgeous textures. The band, named after an area in Southern Oregon, has five members, and they started out releasing four full-length albums in 2010 – a seriously impressive feat.

I was drawn to ‘Spell it Out For Me’ as it has this uplifting melody and vibe; you can’t help but smile when you hear it. The interesting thing about this song is that it doesn’t have a chorus but a one-line refrain. I searched to see if there was a name for the structure of this song, and I stumbled across the strophic structure, present in many church hymns. The melody stays the same, but the lyrics change in each verse. Strophic songs don’t have a bridge or chorus, though, which this song does. So, my conclusion is that the title is a refrain. Although it could be a one-line chorus, music seems to be a bit loosey-goosey with its terms at times. I like songs that don’t necessarily follow well-worn conventions and are still great.

I love the lyrics in this song – the rhymes, the imagery and the message:

If you can hear me
Let me know you can hear me
Make a light go on
Make a door open

Make it something I won’t miss
Unmistakable and obvious

Spell it out for me

“Miss” and “obvious” is a great rhyme.

The message is: if you have something to tell me, say it. Communication is so important in relationships. I feel there are a lot of songs written about the emotions in a relationship – love, happiness, betrayal, commitment, heartbreak, loss – and while communication can be part of those songs, writing a song about clear communication without ambiguity as the main message feels novel.

Of course, there’s some electric piano in the verse – I say “of course” because I’ve realised how many songs I love have some kind of electric piano or synth in them – with some beautiful ‘oohs’ in the backing vocals. The drums come in with the second verse, driving the song forward. One of the rhymes here: “questions” with “ashes” – is not at all perfect, but I think you can get away with it, as the melody is doing the work.

Once we’ve hit the bridge, the song builds a bit more; the backing vocals echo the main vocal, and we have more of the pretty guitar from the intro. I realise ‘pretty’ doesn’t describe it – bright comes to mind, along with twangy and warm. The lyric urges us not to put off saying what needs to be said. This could sound like frustration in another song (Just get on with it!), but the delivery here is so sweet.

The final verse adds an extra two lines, which melodically sound so great, sitting on a backing vocal bed of ‘oohs’, leading perfectly into the refrain. The outro is vocalising on the verse melody, bringing us to the end of 2 minutes and 54 seconds.

If you haven’t listened to Rogue Valley, I can recommend their back catalogue – with over a decade and many albums to enjoy, you could immerse yourself in some great music for quite some time.

The post #27 Rogue Valley – Spell It Out For Me appeared first on Blank Instrument.

Somewhere in my search for blues music a few years back, I stumbled on The Eagle Rock Gospel Singers. I love the rich gospel sound of the vocals that I don’t hear much in contemporary music. My love of that sound led me to find three singers (one male, two female) to provide backing vocals for my song ‘Free’.

The Eagle Rock Gospel Singers were originally a much larger collective of 11 people, singing gospel covers. This evolved into a band of 4, creating a blend of blues, alt-country, indie rock and folk. For me, the lyrical content doesn’t necessarily sit with my personal beliefs about spirituality, but I like how the band use music as a way to deal with their emotions and find some peace.

‘Wilderness’ is taken from 2020’s album I Will Rise. I love how instantaneous everything is, no guitar riff or drum fill intro, just an acoustic guitar, those gorgeously layered vocals, handclaps and a tambourine. We begin with a double chorus, which is super catchy, and although I couldn’t find any lyrics online for it, to my ears it sounds like:

When I meet my maker

There in the wilderness

Imma get on in that rhythm

Cross on over the hill

The second time through the chorus, an electric guitar builds up, with these long, held notes that sit under the acoustic. On reflection, it could be bass, but it’s too hard to tell.

In the verse, we get a little honky sounding piano peeking out. All the instruments work together to build up into the chorus, where a harmonica makes an appearance. I love all of these elements separately, and together they make a great bed for the vocals.

After 2 verses and choruses, there’s a bridge with just the female singers, so it feels new and fresh. I can hear some drums, which I didn’t feel were missing throughout the whole song, as the other percussion keeps the rhythm.

 The instruments get more involved during the second repetition of the chorus, with an electric piano. The best part, though, is the gorgeous gospel ad libs and the repetition of ‘cross on over the hill’. It feels like the song has hit the height of its powers during this last chorus and it feels really uplifting. I think you’d find it hard not to tap your foot and get into it.

Recently the band released a live version of ‘Wilderness‘ which is a slightly different take on the original but feels really solid. It just goes to show – no matter what your spiritual leanings, good music transcends everything.

The post #26 The Eagle Rock Gospel Singers – Wilderness appeared first on Blank Instrument.