I know it is pretty much my job, but I have got to a point where I’m less concerned with genre demarcations, sonic pack mentality, and blinkered tribalism, and I try to embrace the mixing, merging, and musical machinations of modern music. Bands have, as the years have gone on, been less and less inclined to regard what they do as part of a sound or scene, so why should we who write about it?
“Midnight Blue,” the debut single from California’s Scroungy Dogs, is a case in point. You could pull things apart and look to see how all the threads are woven together, but surely it’s better to let the result wash over you. The result is all that matters, and the result here is magnificent.
The song ebbs and flows on chiming guitar motifs, gentle bass and beat and the swell of Hammond organ, and over this sea of sonic bliss, vocals deftly dance. It may be a debut single, but those behind it are anything but new to the game; I could drop names, but they would land with such an obvious clang that it doesn’t seem in keeping with the mellifluous mood made here.
And location is everything; ‘Midnight Blue’ screams West Coast cool. The vibes are relaxed, the sound of sand, sea and surf, of beach parties and backyard jams, road trips and barbecues. It is relaxed and real, music made for the love of collaboration and creation, a revolving door of players with two surfers captaining the ship.
If ever there was music made as the epitome of chasing success, this is it. Why force music out in the hope that it makes you rich and famous when you can make music that is the soundtrack to chasing the next monumental wave? Why indeed?
