Show Me New Ways

Meghan Dowlen “New Shoes”

Imagine a version of St. Vincent that retains Annie Clark’s gift for melody, tightly controlled theatrical vocals, and taste for sleek aesthetics, but instead of a guitar virtuoso, it’s an extremely gifted bassist. A bassist who is clearly well acquainted with the intersections of new wave and funk in the early 80s, and has probably spent a lot of time thinking about “Funkytown” and “Wanna Be Startin’ Something” and ESG and anything Tina Weymouth ever played on.

That’s pretty much what I’m hearing in Meghan Dowlen’s record Dizzy Spell, though there’s other distinctive things going on with it. For one thing, it sounds remarkably clean and precise. There’s nothing padding out or thickening the sounds, nothing to take your ear off the primary elements: bass, vocals, percussion, and dryly recorded bursts of guitar and saxophone for color. I had to acclimate to it a bit – you get so used to songs being filled out with subtle sounds that something this trim and tight can feel slightly alien.

But I think that’s part of the point – to be funky and fun and somewhat relaxed, but also a little uncanny and raw. “New Shoes” often sounds like what I imagine a lot of disco era Michael Jackson music would be like if you got Quincy Jones to silence half the tracks on the mixing board. Which is to say, I think this might strike some people as “unfinished,” but only if you’re not meeting Dowlen on her own terms.

Buy it from Bandcamp.