Shotgun Jimmie – Transistor Sister

  • Bobby Gorman posted
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Shotgun Jimmie

Transistor Sister - You've Changed Records

I first fell in love with understated indie hopeful Shotgun Jimmie during a particular song on his sophomore album and You’ve Changed Records debut, Still Jimmie.  The song was titled “used parts,” and to this day might be the only song to ever mention the ill-fated Delorean automobile.  The reference just struck a chord, speaking to the blissful optimism of a hopeful daydreamer – one willing to spice up old thoughts with unique insight.  Despite boasting instrumentation from notable indie group Attack In Black, I found the album largely hit or miss, but still served as a refreshing break from the everyday.

A couple years later and Shotgun Jimmie returns with his third effort, Transistor Sister, armed with a notable improvement in both style and substance.  Returning fans will note major improvement in production quality – those hollow, recorded-in-my-neighbour’s-garage sounding echoes now replaced with crisp and as creative as ever vocals and guitar.  Rather than detract from the band’s authenticity, everything gets a deserving boost, giving the impression that these sounds were confidently recorded as envisioned by Jimmie.

Jimmie’s biggest strength comes in his knack for having fun with melody – tossing around notes like a cat playing with a ball of yarn.  The album features a couple of notable collaborators, including Ryan Peters (Ladyhawk and Lightning Dust) lending his drumming talent, and Jay Baird (Do Make Say Think) on bass and flute, flavouring the album with their indie know-how (the sound falls somewhere between the aforementioned bands and Joel Plaskett).  From songs about a summer fling that never was (“Late Last Year”), to those stressing the need to just get away from it all (“King Of Kreuzberg”), these are casual ditties sung with a carefree love for life.  One of the most striking, “Suzy,” finds Jimmie reminiscing about his first high school crush – a long time friend he falls for after initially oogling over her friends.  The combination of a juvenile synth and the innocent setting of “walking home with Suzy” perfectly capture moments of fresh-faced youth and curiosity as told by someone amused by their former naivety.  Along those lines, Jimmie values simplicity, which becomes a reoccurring theme that nestles its way comfortably into most songs, most embodied explicitly in the title track as Jimmie sings “I’ve got all I need/Everything I see/Is as simple as can be/And I like it that way.”  Most songs play out like a collection of contemplative melodies and brief phrases – and to that end, it couldn’t work better.

The album’s end features a couple jovial songs that given more space I’d love scribing word for word.  The first of those moments come in “Peace And Love,” a track describing an apocalyptic flood of love: “peace rained out across the land, it came with reckless abandoned, and it destroyed everything in its way/Love ran down from the mountains/ it filled the valleys and canyons/ and the sins within them just washed away… Nothing was left but peace and love.”  Aside from just being one of the cleverest passages I’ve heard in a long while, the track likely also some hidden judgment as to emotional state of the world, and a rather deep insight as to the sociological nature of humanity at large.

The second instance surfaces the following track, “Masterpiece,” with the piano laced confession that:

“We can all agree that people write songs for different reasons, fundamentally I think we disagree because we have different things we believe in… I believe a lot of good can come from doing something just for fun, even if you’re the only one who thinks it’s worth repeating… I don’t think there’s a right or a wrong way of writing or singing a song, even if you’re just making it up as you’re going along, it’s such a beautiful form of expression… I ain’t saying that everything out there is great, there’s a lot of stuff I like and a lot of stuff I hate, spend some time with the good, let the bad slip away, it’s all about how you focus your attention.”

Words to live by, and in many ways a true music lover’s mantra.   Put less poetically, respecting that which surrounds one’s niche is just as important as the pleasure experienced through personal picks – but that it’s certainly not worth giving in to elitism or holding grudges.  I’ve written my fair share of negative reviews, but once I submit that final copy, there’s little benefit from dwelling further.

Transistor Sister resonates with a commanding simplicity.  Such unadorned love for music is rare in today’s rat race of an industry, and I imagine that few people will talk about this diamond in the rough.  But in such a commercial climate, a voice as open as Shotgun Jimmie reminds and reassures us all as to the very love that keeps us music lovers hopeful.  This isn’t a perfect release by far – there’s some filler and odd artistic inclusions – but Transistor Sister has a big heart, and one that can only be truly appreciated by giving it due time.