By Henry Lipput
Deal Casino's Isadora Duncan EP is their first batch of all-new songs since last year's terrific Deal Casino album (one of my top ten favorite releases last year). 2017 also saw them put out the Calidus EP which contained re-workings of some songs from the album and a sad, beautiful acoustic (and untitled) demo they've promised to record for their next album.
Last year's Calidus EP featured the title track, an eight-minute mashup of sorts of three songs from the debut album recorded live in one take in a New Jersey junk yard. This experience of taking a new look at the material has had an impact at what Deal Casino would do on Isadora Duncan.
In the past, I've said some Deal Casino songs have been influenced by artists as wide ranging as The Beatles and Radiohead. On the new EP, some of that shows up again.
The new EP is an excellent, mature work; and I mention The Beatles because Deal Casino (Joe P, Jozii, Jon Rodney, and Chris Donofrio) have begun to mix things up in the studio and expand their sonic palette like the Fab Four started to do beginning with Rubber Soul. On "Dirty T-Shirt," there's both a treated guitar throughout the song and a fuzzed guitar in the solo. I've been listening to Deal Casino since the Heck EP, and both of these sounds from the band are new to me.
"Dirty T-Shirt" is a post-breakup song with, it seems, one of the parties having left with all their clothes but ones that the other party had been wearing as well: "So you had to make due / With the smell of me all over you / Back then you didn't seem to mind / You used to wear me all the time / I guess it wore you out." And when a relationship ends, you begin to notice things you didn't before: "You're starting to show your age."
"Soft Machine" has a very 1980s indie vibe as well as some more manipulated instruments. Joe P sings in a falsetto and there's a big, Beatle-y crescendo in the chorus. "Paper Planes" sounds as if it would have fit nicely on the debut album between songs like "Human Cannonball" and
"Blueberry Pop." "I want everything," sings Joe P in the chorus. "I want everything all the time / Heaven's got away / I'm already living in Paradise."
"12 X 20" would not have been out of place on Radiohead's The Bends album. It's a spooky song that could be about a couple on the run and hiding from something or someone. "Wait right here / I'll tell you when the coast is clear / I'll tell you when it's safe."
Isadora Duncan is out now. Deal Casino will be celebrating with a release party on June 16th at Asbury Park's House of Independents. That one also features Sonic Blume, Well Wisher, and Haunt Club.
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