Paulcito presents you with a Treasure Trove of new musical oddities, wonderments and delights on his alluring, richly rewarding new album — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
Actually, make that latest and greatest album: The idiosyncratic, enigmatic and charismatic Rhode Island singer-songwriter — along with his musical partner-in-crime Carl Dennis — unlock a secret bonus level to their strange game on this tour-de-fourth album. Of course, it’s always easier to win when you’re playing by your own rules and making them up as you go along. Hey, it works for billionaires and politicians. Why not quirky musicians?
And make no mistake: They don’t come much quirkier than Paulcito. In a world of followers, soundalikes, also-rans and trend-hoppers, he is a one-off. Let others write cliche ditties about love and loss and cars and money; Paulcito, or Paul, or Paul Paulcito if you’re not into the whole brevity thing, has other fish to fry. Tastier fish. More exotic fish. Fish with their own source of illumination. Fish that no one has ever caught, hooked or even glimpsed before. Over the course of this 15-song travelogue, he turns his attention to tales and topics that others would foolishly ignore, overlook or dismiss:
He spins tall tales.
He rides the rails.
He sings in Spanish.
He pens odes to obscure sports figures.
He eulogizes a man of gloss.
He warns you not to smoke.
He celebrates an eyeglass maker.
He falls in love with the tide.
He lusts for Tara.
He courts a South Shore queen.
He jealously snoops through your phone.
He performs mysterious deeds in far-off locales.
And he does it all with a haunted / haunting voice that merrily yelps and yawps and warbles and burbles and sweeps and swoops and generally sounds like a cross between some sort of exotic bird and an alien who just landed on this planet and is still trying to master our language so he can pass among us undetected. But he never will — chiefly because he has made the fatal error of taking his enunciation and diction lessons from old recordings of David Byrne and Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh.
Clearly, it takes a special kind of collaborator to help Paulcito take the strange charms that bounce around his feverish noggin and convert them into the fully formed, fleshed-out creations the rest of us know as songs. Just as clearly, New Yorker Dennis (aka Carl Does Music) is the one and only man for the job. While Paul handles the writing, composition and vocals, he deals with all the instrumentation, programming and production — twiddling the knobs, plucking the strings, stepping on the pedals, keying the keys and sliding the sliders to mix it all together.
And quite a mix it is. You want synth-pop? You got it. Guitar-rock and psychedelia? Sure. Surf music, Latin pop, new wave, garage-pop, art-damaged post-punk and indie-rock? Why the hell not? Toss in a handful of genres that have yet to be discovered, identified and classified — including one I like to call Farfisa Organ Presets From Alternate Dimensions — and you’ve got this swirling, whirling cornucopia of unbridled creativity and full-on commitment. Bottom line: Either you get it or you don’t.
As for where they get it from, Paulcito has this to say about musical influences: “Not a huge number really, but everyone good is influenced by someone else good. As far as some of the bigger names past and present, I’m a fan of the likes of Pixies, Bowie, Jethro Tull, U2, The Doors, Hendrix, Zeppelin, Heart, The Police, Blondie, Blur, Laura Nyro, Steely Dan, XTC, Squeeze. Lesser-known but equally brilliant and important names would include the likes of Tom Vek, The Woodentops, Spookey Ruben, Wayne Gillespie, Knower, Daniel Boxx, Pale Honey, Jen Gloeckner, Claire Bradshaw — and the totally awesome Jellyskin!
“You might gather that I lean towards the freaks when it comes to musical artistry,” he says. “But I do have a very soft spot for the very gentle and mannered America and especially for one of the loveliest songs ever recorded, A Horse With No Name. I’m also good with Herb Alpert — maybe that is where it really all started, running around the coffee table faster and faster to Zorba the Greek, as a little one.”
Dig into Treasure Trove below, and share the wealth with Paulcito at his website, Instagram and Facebook. Tell him I sent you.
