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Brooklyn one-man wunderkind Tom Curtain’s five-song Winter Lite may not be as ambitiously rendered or as epically scaled as his 2014, six-years-in-the-making debut concept LP/rock opera The Necromancer’s Kids, but it’s every bit as attention-grabbing. As it happens, Curtain began writing it in 2008 before beginning work on Necromancer’s, intending to be his first full-length, Winter Light. But once Necromancer’s became his primary focus, Curtain put Winter on the back burner. Motivated by the debut’s long-awaited release in April 2014, he revisited and recorded Winter in a mere four months, paring it down to a handful of songs – thus, the EP title’s “lite” designation. And though he says Winter (in its original LP form) was written as a song-for-song response to Paul McCartney’s 1971 second LP RAM, you’d probably have to be a Macca fanatic to figure out which particular RAM tune inspired each of the EP’s five sequels. (Though I’m guessing the opening “Flies” was inspired by “3 Legs,” due to both songs’ repeated references to the pesky pests.)
As on Necromancer’s, Curtain’s compositions often recall The Decemberists, but he adds in oodles of influences that at various times evoke other inventive ilk like Neutral Milk Hotel, Jeremy Enigk, Guided By Voices, Olivia Tremor Control, and Arcade Fire, while sprinkling in specks of ‘60s baroque pop and neo-psychedelia. Indeed, his narrative, folky lyrical style even resembles The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy, mixed with Belle & Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch. But Curtain’s pleasant, quivery “warble” is more apprehensive and impulsive than those two more confident crooners, as when he addresses an anxiety-afflicted acquaintance on the anthemic, elevating opener “Flies,” or when ardently appealing to an admirer on the brisker, amorous “Noble One.”
Following the dreamy, droney, dew-drippy instrumental “Winter Light,” Curtain closes the EP with the stomping, springy shanty “Optometrist Song” and the twinkling, snare drum-tapped “The Clown,” two droll ditties depicting a soul-sucking sight doctor and a scheming circus performer, respectively. Compared with the page-turning novel that Necromancer’s was, Winter is a superb short story collection. (warbles.net)
