10 Items or Fewer:
Debut album “The Fossil Record”
“On The Fossil Record, singer-songwriter Mike Hallenbeck flaunts his usual smarts, humor, and pathos.” —Keith Harris, Racket
“Trapped like ants in amber/ like a coelacanth in the mud/ everything will stay exactly the way it never was”, concludes the final, titular song on 10 Items or Fewer’s “The Fossil Record”. It’s a fitting wrap to a 13-track collection of wide ranging indie-folk meditations on intersections between the past, the present, and the future.
The lyrics meander through topics like having lunch with your ex, the crash of the Russian Space Station Mir, dinosaurs, wooly mammoths, the frustration of staying the same when a friend has changed, ants in amber, Star Wars, trying unsuccessfully to banish someone from your thoughts, and a post-apocalyptic world where cockroaches dream up mythic creatures with only two arms and legs apiece.
The music proceeds from a template of acoustic guitar and vocals, branching out into assorted arrangement strategies that envelop country, rock, bluegrass, and synth pop– plus the occasional descent into maelstroms of warbling synths, field recordings, and variously sculpted noise.
Stream on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, etc
Support 10 Items or Fewer on Patreon
= = = = =