Gabriel Birnbaum – Not Alone
Arrowhawk Records – 22 November 2019
When you enter Gabriel Birnbaum’s name into Wikipedia nothing shows up. Not an auspicious beginning for a working musician who has played some of the country’s grungiest DIY venues, not to mention the far less grungy Lincoln Center, Bonnaroo, and Le Guess Who. Enter Wilder Maker though, and Birnbaum shows up as their guitarist and vocalist. It’s an interesting dichotomy especially for someone who’s wrestled with clinical depression. For his thirtieth birthday, he gave himself a present and recorded an album, Not Alone, with some of his favourite musicians.
Okkervil River guitarist Will Graefe along with Buck Meek and Same Evian six-string picker Adam Brisbin joined drummer Jason Nazary to form Birnbaum’s band. Together they found the magic in these songs, creating a disc that showcases his strengths as a bandleader and singer. Joining his mates in the living room of the Great Northern Sound Society preparing the songs on the fly, recording them in a matter of days, he has crafted an album of surprisingly bold dimensions.
The guitars that open the album’s title track, Not Alone, give the proceedings a gentle, woodsy tone as Birnbaum sings, “I like to see your name appear on my phone, thinking of you somewhere thinking of me and I’m not alone.” There’s a sense of reassurance in those lines. Just seeing that name changes things in so many ways with the song coming together and receding in spurts matching the energy as his eyes watch those tell-tale words appear on his screen.
A slightly skewed electric guitar feeds Comeback Song where, “everyone deserves a comeback song, you blink your eyes you’ve been sleeping so long, the city saved, the dirt remade…” The song rocks sometimes subtly and sometimes not so much, before going out on a moment of cacophonous noise. In a similar vein, Lose My Head builds on the repeated chorus, “I want to lose my head’ getting louder and a tad more unhinged at every turn. By song’s end the guitars border on becoming a glorious mess.
Gabriel Birnbaum in his here to fore unknown role as a solo artist has done more than merely celebrated a birthday. This is more like a coming-out party for an artist no longer content to be one of many. With Not Alone, he has exposed himself as a full-fledged artist in his own right, one deserving of a much wider audience.
Not Alone is out on 22 November, order it via Bandcamp: https://gabrielbirnbaum.bandcamp.com/releases
Photo Credit: Ellen Askonas