Hot Pursuit of Happiness – “This Day’s Called Tuesday” – [Personal Archives]

Brian Damage   9/2/2022   A Library, CD

Thollem is a Bay Area artist “who has released approximately 100 albums on 23 different vanguard labels, both solo and collaborative,” since 2005.

This is perhaps the ultimate expression of a pandemic lockdown album, solo composed and recorded while doomscrolling the news over the past two years. Stream-of-consciousness lyrics, sung and spoken in what can be almost a whisper of a voice, sometimes so faint you think he might be singing in another language, accompanied by a keyboard with some seriously analog-sounding patches and a TR-808 plug-in, all done in one take, with no overdubs.

Think of it as a mashup of late-70s minimalist synth acts on both sides of the pond (Suicide, Human Sexual Response, The Normal, Soft Cell), Pere Ubu, NON, Loaded-era Velvets, 60s protest folk music, and narrative poetry, all passed through a filter of ennui and exasperation. It’s a whisper, not a scream.