Do you remember the band Kamikaze Palm Tree? It’s fine if you don’t. I definitely got PR emails about Kamikaze Palm Tree, but I don’t remember them at all. The two permanent members of Kamikaze Palm Tree, Dylan Hadley and Cole Berliner, both came from the San Francisco psych-rock scene. Together, they made skronky, skittery art music full of herky-jerk riffs and off-kilter math-rock self-interruptions. There are lots of bands like Kamikaze Palm Tree, baby Deerhoofs whose euphoric splatter conveys a sense of permanent restlessness. It is not my thing, but maybe it’s yours.
Kamikaze Palm Tree released two albums. The second of those albums was called Mint Chip, and it came out on Drag City in 2022. This makes sense. Mint Chip is the kind of album that should come out on Drag City, the Chicago label that’s been cranking out a steady stream of off-kilter art-music since the dawn of the ’90s. On Mint Chip, Kamikaze Palm Tree settled into slightly hookier and friendlier melodies than the ones that populated their 2019 debut Good Boy. But I still had a hard time making it through Mint Chip just now. When Kamikaze Palm Tree gave their songs titles like “The Hit” and “Club Banger,” they were pretty clearly being ironic.
With that in mind, I was a little suspicious to learn that Dylan Haldey and Cole Berliner, the two members of Kamikaze Palm Tree, had a new project going, a relatively down-the-middle pop duo known as Sharpie Smile, and that they were continuing to release music on Drag City. They took the Sharpie Smile name from the title of a particularly skronky old Kamikaze Palm Tree song, and everything about their switch-up rang alarm bells. The same people and even the same record label are involved, but the sonic shift between the two projects was jarring and abrupt. I tend to think of pop music as a craft and a discipline, not as a set of genre signifiers that you can pick up or shed. You can’t just be like, “Check this out, we’re pop now.” It’s a completely different way of looking at music and expression. I thought maybe these Sharpie Smile folks were making fun of the idea of pop music, or that they were chasing trends, or some combination of the two. And maybe they are. I’ve never met these people, and even if I had, I doubt I could confidently tell you about their intentions. But what I can tell you is that The Staircase, Hadley and Berliner’s first album under the Sharpie Smile name, is a very good underground pop record.
“Underground pop” as a concept seems contradictory, since the term “pop” implies popularity, but anyone who pays attention to music these days knows that’s not the case. Pop is a genre of music that may or may not be actually popular. Actual popularity may or may not be among its artistic or commercial goals. Since Robyn’s self-titled album, there’s been a solid two decades of artists who use the vocabulary of pop to make strange, giddy, personal statements, and that weird little lane is one of the most consistently exciting things that we’ve got going these days. With Sharpie Smile, Dylan Haldey and Cole Berliner have entered into that conversation, and their version of it never sounds like a pisstake. Hadley’s calm, crystalline voice is better-suited to clean, direct melodies than to whatever Kamikaze Palm Tree were doing, and Hadley and Berliner have a real knack for the kind of shimmery, streamlined production that you can now craft at home on a laptop. Their version of this music makes emotional sense, and they never sound like they’re sacrificing the idiosyncrasies that they put on display with their old band.
If Sharpie Smile are chasing the 100 gecs bag, you can’t really tell. Their lyrics aren’t a pastiche. They’re elliptical, poetic evocations of heartbreak and longing. Teardrops figure in heavily, as does aquatic imagery. If you look at the lyric sheet that comes with the album, it’s got a lot of “OOOOOooOooOOOOH” and “AAAAAOAOOaooaaaaaaaAAAAoo,” which might suggest that this whole thing is an elaborate goof. In context, though, that works more as an admission that a drawn-out wordless sigh, sometimes fed through multiple distorting vocal filters, can mean at least as much as some actual language. Hadley sings with a clear-eyed precision that recalls Caroline Polachek, and the blinky-woozy keyboards remind me of a less layered Magdalena Bay, or of a more elaborate take on the Blow’s Paper Television. Sharpie Smile aren’t trying to make Max Martin records in their garage. Instead, they’re chasing a sense of psychedelic shimmer, and they have made a lovely example of the form.
On “The Slide,” Sharpie Smile build a ballad out of blaring waves of sub-bass and guitars so heavily treated that they sound like keyboards. “Disappears” has echoing waves of multi-tracked vocals and drums that hiccup and stutter, sometimes threatening to break into a thunderous thump that never arrives. “New Flavor” is an electro-pop bloop party that does more than flirt with club sounds. On “So Far,” harpist Leng Bian joins the group to help ornament a track that’s already got skittering drum ‘n’ bass breakbeats threaded all through it. There’s nothing maximalist about these tracks. Sharpie Smile aren’t trying to hammer you with one hyperactive genre signifier after another. Instead, their tracks unfold with an unhurried grace. When a drum breakdown or a soft-focus ’80s-style guitar solo shows up, it seems like it’s there because the song called for it, not because Sharpie Smile are trying to shove a ton of shit into too small a container.
Ultimately, The Staircase isn’t a stop-the-world album. It’s short and pretty and agreeable. It’s the sort of thing that you can put on when you’re cleaning your house and then forget completely an hour later. It won’t change your life. But I’m struck by just how graceful and reassuring it is, how pleasantly it fills a room. It’s not easy to make a pop record like this, and I don’t think you can do it as a joke or an accident. The Staircase isn’t just a sharp turn away from the members’ Kamikaze Palm Tree past. It’s an uncommonly appealing collection of melodies and beats and images and ideas. Even if I did remember Kamikaze Palm Tree, I would be shocked to learn that they had something like this in them. Now, I can’t wait to hear what they do next.
The Staircase is out 6/27 on Drag City.
Other albums of note out this week:
• Lorde’s Virgin
• Laura Stevenson’s Late Great
• Greet Death’s Die In Love
• Deadguy’s Near-Death Travel Services
• Isabella Lovestory’s Vanity
• Blonde Redhead’s The Shadow Of The Guest
• GELO’s League Of My Own
• Frankie Cosmos’ Different Talking
• Nick León’s A Tropical Entropy
• M83’s A Necessary Escape (Dakar Chronicles Original Soundtrack)
• Herbert & Momoko’s Clay
• HLLLYH’s URUBURU
• Pig Pen’s Mental Madness
• Kevin Abstract’sBLUSH
• Pi’erre Bourne’s Made In Paris
• TDJ’s TDJ
• Zoh Amba’s Fruit Gathering
• Pan American & Kramer’s Interior Of An Edifice Under The Sea
• BABYMETAL’s Metal Forth
• Gwar’s The Return Of Gor Gor
• Madison McFerrin’s Scorpio
• Juan Waters’ MVD LUV
• BC Camplight’s A Sober Conversation
• The Dirty Nil’s The Lash
• Smut’s Tomorrow Comes Crashing
• Tim Barnes’ Lost Words & Noumena
• Sean Nicholas Savage’s The Knowing
• Merzbow’s Sedonis
• Barbra Streisand’s The Secret Of Life: Partners, Volume Two
• Sodom’s The Arsonist
• Streetlight Manifesto’s The Place Behind The Stars
• The K’s Pretty On The Internet
• Water Machine’s God Park
• Parker McCollum’s Parker McCollum
• Maoli’s Last Sip Of Summer
• Hot Milk’s Corporation P.O.P
• Badflower’s No Place Like Home
• late night drive home’s as I watch my life online
• Durand Jones & The Indications’ Flowers
• Gelli Haha’s Switcheroo
• Adrian Quesada’s Boleros Psicodélicos II
• Arc De Soleil’s Lumin Rain
• Robert Randolph’s Preacher Kids
• Elle Barbara’s Word On The Street
• TSS’ END OF TIME
• Willi Carlisle’s Winged Victory
• Pleasure Pill’s Hang A Star
• Mark Mallman’s Magic Time
• Nev Lilit’s Hyperit
• Cam Muncey’s Delusions Of Grandeur
• Oropendola’s Swimming
• Lightheaded’s Thinking, Dreaming, Scheming
• Seedbed’s Stalemate
• Jeanines’ How Long Can It Last
• Blood Vulture’s Die Close
• Vandoliers’ Life Behind Bars
• Lauren Spencer Smith’s The Art Of Being A Mess
• kerri’s Don’t Panic
• Mareux’s Nonstop Romance
• Charlotte Lawrence’s Somewhere
• Mark Mallman’s Magic Time
• Elle Barbara’s Word On The Street
• YESHE’s Dust
• Mocky’s Music Will Explain
• Brighde Chaimbeul’s Sunwise
• Andy Jenkins’ Since Always
• We Contain Multitudes’ Minako
• Dana And Alden’s Speedo
• Mike Huguenor’s Surfing The Web With The Alien
• Black Sites’ R4
• Domkraft’s Domkraft
• Charles Kelley’s Songs For A New Moon
• Tropos’ Switches
• Akira Kosemura’s MIRAI
• Histamine’s Quality Of Life
• Daisychain’s All In A Name
• Syd Taylor’s After The Fact
• Penny & The Pits’ Liquid Compactor
• Heaven Shall Burn’s Heimat
• Felly’s Ambroxyde (LP)
• Moving Mountains’ Pruning Of The Lower Limbs
• Lame’s Lo Que Extrañas Ya No Existe
• Ryli’s Come And Get Me
• B Jack$’s No Guest List
• Russ’ W!LD
• Steve Aoki’s HiROQUEST 3: Paragon
• The compilation A Tribute To The King of Zydeco
• The F1 soundtrack
• Botch’s 061524 live album
• The Dickies’ What Once Was live album
• Bruce Springsteen’s Tracks II: The Lost Albums
• Motörhead’s The Manticore Tapes
• The Cranberries’ No Need To Argue 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
• The compilation All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985
• Robin Trower’s For Earth Below (50th Anniversary Edition)
• Rod Stewart’s Ultimate Hits
• KATSEYE’s BEAUTIFUL CHAOS EP
• Lisa/Liza’s Ocean Path EP
• Tortoise’s Oganesson Remix EP
• Natanya’s Feline’s Return EP
• Mollie Elizabeth’s Dirty Blonde EP
• Starling’s Forgive Me, EP
• Logan Mize’s Open Road EP
• sofii’s I want this feeling to last forever EP
• Skegss’ Top Heavy EP
• LEILAH’s LOST THE PLOT EP
• Annie Tracy’s Scared Of Heights EP
• Presley Regier’s SPILL EP
• Dayglow’s Superbloom EP
• eaJ’s 1 EP
