Cindy - Why Not
Ultimately, where Why Not Now shines is how Gill’s earnest lyrical delivery is perfectly complemented by her band’s instrumentation. Few surprises lurk here in the spartan confines of her heart.
By: Robert Hill
This album might not dig you out of your emotional pit, but it will keep you company while you figure out how everything went wrong.
Born from the vibrant and historic San Francisco music scene, Cindy is the brainchild of Karina Gill and her collaborators – a supergroup virtually unknown to the general public.
Comprised of members sourced from the heart of SF’s pop community, Gill, Aaron Diko (Diko, Pow!), Stanley Martinez (Famous Mammals) and Mike Ramos (Tony Jay, Flowertown) lay down gently a tangible landscape of eleven songs on Why Not Now (NA – Mtn. St. Mtn.; EU/ROW – Rough Trade) that wander a bit and invite the listener to slow down and contemplate emotional abandonment and attachment.
Opening with the titular track, “Why Not Now,” Gill’s eyes-down ode to love’s complications sets the tone for the album with an effortlessly subtle, rolling pace, that subverts the depth of feeling inherent in her lyrics. Cindy leaves no one behind. Each composition is accessible yet sophisticated, building and sustaining energy through cohesive, complementary sounds rather than conflict.
Not lacking drama, the album mixes things up early with an instrumental downshift in the second track, “Standard Candle #3,” melding the flow of Why Not Now with a breathy, organ-driven pseudo-dirge spirit that feels somehow like a requiem for a Beach Boy. Rife with reverent sounds and a funereal pace, “Standard Candle #3” is a feint before lashing back with “Earthly Belonging,” a pop song that comes close to jangling in the spirit of early indie groups a la The Clean or later examples like Pavement.
“August,” the fourth track on Why Not Now, provides an interesting bit of foreshadowing in its employment of drones to form the spine of the composition. Followed by the track “Wednesday,” with its found sound pastiche providing pervasive accompaniment, the binary suite feels like a conceptual echo that brings the listener back to the reality of Cindy. Optimistic doesn’t feel like the right term here.
That sense of susceptible pragmatism carries over into “A Trumpet On The Hillside.” Complete with a supplementary music video, the first single from the album cools down with deconstructed sounds born during the last century. More than a funeral march, “A Trumpet On The Hillside” stands out as an exciting examination of devotion in emotional commitment through its glacial pace, grinding slowly salt into the open wound.
Providing a peppy counterpoint is the album’s ninth track, “Et Surtout,” a French language piece. Shambolic and brief, Gill’s piece provides a head-bobbing, indie pop sensibility not too distant from the influence of the 1990s Olympia, WA groups like Beat Happening.
Ultimately, where Why Not Now shines is how Gill’s earnest lyrical delivery is perfectly complemented by her band’s instrumentation. Few surprises lurk here in the spartan confines of her heart.
Stripped of extraneous lingering, Why Not Now exposes the mundanity of emotion and pain through Gill and company’s urbane music. Introspective might be an apt description for the album, but done publicly, with an affected air perfect for post-breakup malaise. This album might not dig you out of your emotional pit, but it will keep you company while you figure out how everything went wrong.
