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Hour of Green Evening

by Goon

supported by
Taylor Thurlow
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Taylor Thurlow An incredible combination of melancholic sing-along crooners that always end up with a little bright edge to them. The classic alternative rock sound is here, but somehow wrapped in a candy coating only capable of coming from the Bandcamp era. No misplaced or ill-though-out instrumentation, intriguing but accessible lyrics. The onus is on everyone else to dethrone what is undoubtedly my album of the year so far. It'll take quite a bit to do so. Favorite track: Bend Back.
walnood
walnood thumbnail
walnood It's the combination of organic unconventional arrangements with hopeful/sweet yet sinister lyrics at times that makes this album kinda special to me, almost mystical. Favorite songs are currently Another Window, Emily Says and Bend Back. Favorite track: Bend Back.
nickd0
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nickd0 Light but penetrating, a sound that tickled a part of my brain that has gone untickled for a while! Favorite track: Buffalo.
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    Démodé Recordings presents a limited edition version of "Hour of Green Evening" which includes two additional tracks, "Red Bread" and "Flower Bell" on a red disc, with obi strip.

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1.
2.
in a past life you softly slept through waking hours and in the boughs beams of sound play a welcoming still we met the morning dew and climbing into the open maw where some small part hangs around safely under my angled wide number
3.
night bloomed over the ivy in a row there were you, singing along in the yellow many gathered lamps will light and in hallowed rhyme there we will sharpen knives near you, following patterns in the snow all-wreathing fog in the field where we let go may a solemn spirit rise and have it's time then turn with dimming light
4.
Buffalo 04:03
i found the sky unblinking and floated down the sidewalk the hedges had me thinking of sharing grassy knees there with me you're red and green and turning back the time there when seven vine lines it wouldn't mend my heart wouldn't mend my heart couldn't now but back there, finding my head in the clouds the beady eyes before us sing a dawning chorus and steeping in the paper the sleepy chamomile there in three's i read the leaves and laid rest to why then where pale and bright rind i'm gonna raise the lark gonna mend my heart gonna try in raised beds finding their way to the sky some frail stems coming above to say
5.
Wavy Maze 03:41
come along and wake up on the way orange shapes arrange and change again quiet Isaac in a mild dream past the eucalyptus wall when i was small Saria's ageless song played along a pattern and a path to follow gather in among the wiry trees turning people turn the wheel away then we heard their voices slowly fade softly as the snow would fall covering all meadow to the cedar hall then go on warming in impending autumn into gloom arbors and gates and the garden poles new songs from beyond the wall healing and farther on near but never here above shadows on the window wall in a fog take away a six from seven
6.
Emily Says 03:18
our fate has seeds in the ground and there they will wait inches from sunshine and rootless here they allow to lengthen the days and cover us over cuz when it is time to sprout ringing with silver and cymbal sound i'm hoping that heaven will hear me out it hinges here in the air a garden in wait blanket of sunshine and i'm like "i wanna be there" and emily says "hope still appears" and though i know in my heart it's right feeling like hurting myself tonight nobody's candle is burning bright the wind inside the blades of grass will unbind it well i've been to the mountain high and melting up into open sky you are the voice and the reason why
7.
Bend Back 03:34
waking in the dawning blue aligned with fate i'm shedding my shoes i've heard before and i hear it now the chiming bell that sleeps in the ground speaking through the floor and calling my name out balm of Baal will fix my head and form a portal here in my bed then calmly sung by candlelight a quiet prayer that Jake be alright filling in the holes and burying my phone now i'm in a room letting in sun for the ferns and vines coming above for a little while tracing your face in the rosy light you're opening the vein of time and every ending will within begin again
8.
Maple Dawn 01:29
9.
Ochre 03:34 video
i wandered out of bed cuz there's a firing line in my head and it worked for a minute open my evil eye up ahead, arrow only then, i know up ahead and out the window whatever worries say and even if they're right you'll rise anyway then i picked out a yellow under the amber light up ahead, arrow only then, i know up ahead and out the window i'm leaving that season after all and beckoning all who read the signs to pacify seventy-five dividing lights with ashes and fire of waiting arms are open wide
10.
Lyra 04:10
in the dimming sky roman candle upon a fen bright spirit smile over merry cries and they grew and your seeking hands held mine and the grass was high ambling knots of vetiver down by your side oleander at mine with a tune in the burning sun lyre lines
11.
climbing through the windowpane pools in the grass and gentle haze there's a fizzing in the fire palms on the eyes hiding me from a headline but once painful long joined into a song all unlauded days were mending ones and for you too for whom the mirror will align anew in sweetly petaled time bright the lane of blood alight below the earth in bended rhyme gentle heavy creepin in hovering rising deep from the faultline hydrangea lawn azure till the dawn beckoning me leave the last light on for you for whom the mirror will align anew in sweetly petaled time with a bell ringing over

about

“Come along and wake up on the way,” sings Goon frontman Kenny Becker, “orange shapes arrange and change again/quiet Isaac in a mild dream.” The lyric evokes the hazy dreamscape spaces occupied by the band’s new album, Hour of Green Evening. It describes an in-between time, the pre-dawn quiet over a still-sleeping suburban neighborhood, insects buzzing and the creatures just stirring awake. The yearning of kids in their beds for the world beyond, of being stuck just on the precipice of everything. The sun soon to rise, the whole world about to be in bloom.

Goon began as Becker’s Bandcamp solo project in 2015. At a friend’s encouragement, Becker compiled the best of his tracks and released them as an EP, 2016’s Dusk of Punk. He recruited bandmates from his college buddies and released a second EP, all the while working on the band’s first full-length, 2019’s Heaven is Humming on Partisan Records, followed by the self-released Paint By Numbers 1, a collection of his mid-pandemic home recordings. After several band members departed for other jobs, cities, and life experiences, Becker recruited a new band—Andy Polito on drums, Dillon Peralta on guitar, and Tamara Simons on bass—and set about recording a second LP, Hour of Green Evening, in Tropico Beauty studio in Glendale, California, working with producer and engineer Phil Hartunian. Alex Fischel from Spoon also sat in on the session, providing piano and keyboards.

“We tracked ten days in the studio to start, and ended up working a total of twenty,” says Becker. “For the first six or seven days we did it live, the four of us in the room, with Phil in the control booth, tracking straight to two-inch tape. It was isolated deep pandemic vibes. We felt like we had enough days booked away from the world to really take our time.”

The evolution of Goon has come to full fruition on Hour of Green Evening. It’s the band’s most complete statement, engaging all aspects of their sound to stunning effect. The record conjures the nighttime suburban world of Becker’s youth, a mix of concrete and cookie-cutter homes with the lush beauty of California landscapes. The album thrums with mystery, with the half-remembered past hazy as dreams, the mixed sense of comfort and longing for freedom so essential to youth. The world of Hour of Green Evening is lush and strange, populated by people dreaming, sleeping and waking, existing in that in-between space of the nighttime world. Plant references abound, the “hydrangea lawns” of “Last Light On,” the “eucalyptus wall” of “Wavy Maze,” the oleander in the hypnotic “Lyra,” all swirling together in an endless suburban gloaming.

The dew-soaked morning maw of “Angelnumber 1210” blurs the space between waking and dreaming as distorted guitars cut through the atmospherics. “In a past life you softly slept through waking hours” sings Becker, “and in the boughs beams of sound play a welcoming.” It’s the merging of worlds, the divine suggestion of angel numbers leading the earth-bound narrator towards trust, growth, and progress, even across various lives and timelines.

The light, rangy “Ochre” is a deceptively dark song. Again, Becker calls to the imagery of the half-asleep times, singing, “I wandered out of bed/cuz there’s a firing line in my head/and it worked for a minute/opened my evil eye.” The calmness of the music and the ease of Becker’s delivery belies the anxiety at the core of the song, with images of fire, destruction, and pain drifting by, accented by Alex Fischel’s manic piano flourishes.

The quiet, beating heart of the record is “Emily Says.” The title references both the Velvet Underground and Becker’s wife, Emily. Distorted guitars alternately sludge and sparkle while Becker sings his best melody, gliding soft as a bird over the maelstrom, a strange, idiosyncratic take on the traditional love song. “It’s about how falling in love can save your life,” says Becker, “but it doesn’t fix any of your problems. The chaos of life will persist, but it’s a little bit better, because we’re not facing it on our own anymore. We’re together.”

Hour of Green Evening stands as the most powerful statement from Goon yet. Becker and company evoke a sense of childhood yearning in a night-blooming suburban world, a sleepwalker’s journey beneath the orange-glowing streetlights. It’s a record of melodic richness and finely textured production, slipping easily between heavy guitars and glimmering vocals, a fullness that comforts but never overwhelms. The songs have a melancholy to them, but they never succumb to hopelessness, knowing at the heart of the darkest night there is still light, goodness, and maybe even someone else there to help you wander through.

[written by Jimmy Cajoleas]

credits

released July 15, 2022

engineered by phil hartunian
mixed by brian rosemeyer
mastered by kenny becker
recorded at tropico beauty and kenny's apt

andy polito - drums
dillon peralta - guitar
tamara simmons - bass
alex fischel - piano, synth
emily elkin - cello
heather lockie - viola
eric clark - violin
kenny becker - guitar, vocals, synth, tape loops, piano, composer, album art

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