With tender guitar lines and songs wrapped in romanticised nostalgia, the dulcet tones of Tyler Bussey, aka Thank You Thank You, act as a comforting embrace when it all feels too much. Removing all forms of intensity from the world around you, Bussey’s latest EP, Next To Nothing, offers an introduction to the artist that lets you navigate his musings at your own pace.

Out on the blossoming Philly based family that is OOF Records, we caught up with Tyler to see what he had been listening to as of late. Here are his picks:

MJ Lenderman – Someone Get the Grill Out of the Rain

This song is so simple and lovely and to the point.  It’s like something you’d find tucked in the pocket of an old coat.  You almost can’t believe a person wrote it; it’s more like it was tugged lightly from the air or half-spotted gleaming out the window. Humid and elegant.

Lambchop – A Chef’s Kiss

Lambchop is straight-up one of my favoUrite bands of all time. I love the way Kurt Wagner uses words – he’s so conversational and unpredictable.  As I get older, I find myself more and more interested in and moved by early-20th century music and songwriting. I don’t know why? Maybe things that sounded stuffy and sentimental to me before just register now as romantic, big-hearted, timeless, cosmic.  ‘Maybe I’ll break in…to the movies / become a star upon the screen / and blow…a kiss…to…a song.’

The Weather Station – Tried To Tell You

Great song. I first heard The Weather Station years ago at Pickathon in Happy Valley, Oregon, which is easily my favourite festival.  There’s something about Tamara Lindeman’s melodic sensibility I relate to and find comfort in, and the arrangement of this track is killer — listen to the way the strings sneak in during the second verse, barely noticeable, like the light in the room has shifted. ‘Would it kill you to believe in your pleasure?’  Big question! There’s a lot of great songs on Ignorance – you should listen to the whole album, but this is the one I’ve been putting on repeat.

Archie Shepp & Jason Moran – Round Midnight

This past year, I had a habit of getting intently focused, for weeks at a time, on specific songs or compositions or recordings, and more often than not, that music ended up being jazz, or at least jazz-adjacent.  I’ve liked jazz for a long time, but it really took over my listening routines during the pandemic; I imagine tons of people found that the music they usually listen to just wasn’t cutting it, wasn’t suiting the mood of lockdown life, and for me, jazz and classical sort of took over.  That might seem nostalgic, but I think it was something else.  Maybe it was a safe way of familiarising myself with something unfamiliar.  Maybe it had to do with a sense of heft: the way that the music feels like it knows a lot more than you do, and it’s something important.  Maybe it’s the way the recordings often capture people together in a room, making music in real time, something I was missing dearly.  Let My People Go, the recent record from the great Archie Shepp (who was raised in Philadelphia, where I live now) and Jason Moran, is really gripping and immediate – from the way it was recorded to the intensity and beauty of their playing and Archie’s singing.  I can’t recommend it highly enough.  (Also, on a similar tip, PLEASE check out the Pharoah Sanders / Floating Points / London Symphony Orchestra album, it is so good.)

Bill MacKay and Nathan Bowles – Joy Ride

Lately, I probably spend most of my time practicing the guitar and banjo. I give lessons too. Banjo, specifically, is a really misunderstood instrument by a lot of people, or people write it off because they associate it with certain eras or styles or regions or whatever, but just because something is often used in certain contexts doesn’t mean it can’t be used inventively or in new ways. Bill MacKay and Nathan Bowles are both such adventurous musicians, regardless of context — I saw Nathan do a duo set with Ryley Walker once where Nathan was mostly using the banjo to produce feedback — and this new collaborative LP from Drag City is just further proof.  Joy Ride demonstrates their chemistry and interplay really well; one moment it sounds like something you’d hear on one of the earliest American phonographs, the next it sounds like Terry Riley or something. I love that sense of boundlessness.

 

If you’d like to support us by subscribing to our zine, click here – it’s just £6 a year for four copies (inc p&p).