Mikey's box filled with stories
Hannah+Gabi’s CD release “Haha Yes” opens on a window looking out to a frozen courtyard where brittle sunlight passes through cellophane lanterns, trees “expand to brooms” and “the city waits.” It’s a winter day in New York City, at least in my mind, and a stately piano theme is crisscrossed by minor chord harmonies, punctuated by glockenspiel notes, all within 2:21. Mikey Amistoso’s first solo release is cinematic like that. The short (26-minute) EP contains nine new songs, almost a series of movie themes in search of an indie flick. Opener City harks to a grander theme somewhere off on the horizon. I kept wanting to hear more, to see it all in Cinemascope, but Amistoso knows the value of brevity. Like key movie soundtracks from the 1960s (Simon & Garfunkel’s The Graduate, John Barry’s Midnight Cowboy, Burt Bacharach’s Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid), Mikey’s themes are fleeting and haunting. And very hummable.
Some are born to Tin Pan Alley it seems, while others are dragged there. Amistoso — like his fellow occasional jingle writer, Jazz Nicolas — has a gift for the well-turned melodic phrase, the pretty chord displacement, the major to minor miracle in pop song form. It’s no surprise that Amistoso and Nicolas do, in fact, work in the same jingle factory (writing occasional music for Jollibee, for instance): it’s a day job to sustain the existence of Itchyworms and Cuidad, one presumes. (They also perform together, on occasion, as Mikey Mikey and Jazzy Jazz. Check your local cocktail lounge for listings.)
Hannah + Gabi, the band (named after a song by Lemonheads, one of Amistoso’s avowed influences), is essentially Mikey minus Ciudad bandmates, with a few assists on vocals and drums. Amusingly titled “Haha Yes” (as though responding politely to an interviewer’s insipid question), the solo release is a more introspective, reflective affair than Ciudad’s acclaimed 2008 CD, “Bring Your Friends.” Images of holding hands, dreaming, looking back, pondering souvenirs, poring over a box of stories abound. Like Paul Simon’s “parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,” or Paul McCartney’s Junk, these are sentimental journeys hinting at deeper thoughts, deeper hurts. There’s a wistful air to New Window, with its narcoleptic middle-eight (“Sleep time… sleep time…”) Harmonica (harmonium?) bursts counterpoint the delicate guitar picking in Soon They All Pass. The musical decoration is never overly ornate, always tasteful and “just so.”
As before, the ghost of Elliott Smith haunts Amistoso’s music, even his vocals. But Mikey’s clearly found his own voice now, his own signature style. “Haha Yes” floats along on its concise pop arrangements, with amusing twists and turns, both stylistic and musical. Waiting for the Rainfall, for instance, sidesteps into a karaoke hoedown shuffle during the chorus. That and the banjo notes on You Know It may even justify the CD’s genre designation as “country.”
Then again, country music is really a form of blues. Amistoso reportedly wrote most of this music during a lengthy stay in NYC, where Ciudad was touring last year. Perhaps Mikey is charting his own country’s blues music: quirky, sentimental, melodic, with a Bacharach heart at its center.
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The launch of Hannah+Gabi’s “Haha Yes” is Saturday, Nov. 13, 9 p.m. at Route 196. The CD is also available on iTunes or visit www.myspace.com/hannahgabi.
