Every week, 88Nine brings you a fresh track from a Milwaukee artist. They send it to us. We post it here. You hear it before everyone else.
For today's premiere, we've got a song from the Milwaukee drums/cello duo Nineteen Thirteen's new EP "If You Like it, It's Good," which is out today on all digital music stores. Stream "Lullaby" below.
For a band built around a seemingly restrictive template -- two musicians, one a cellist, the other a drummer -- Nineteen Thirteen have proven themselves one of the city's most consistently surprising acts. On each of their EPs they've found new ways to tweak that formula, often by adding new instruments: vocals, pianos, bass, samplers, basically anything within reach at drummer Victor DeLorenzo's studio.
From a gothic intro that's only partially a fakeout, "Lullaby" captures the duo at their jazziest and most moody, casting DeLorenzo's hushed, beat-poet vocals against a dusky nightclub groove and some seriously chilling bass. It sounds like the embodiment of those old cartoons with all the skeletons playing instruments.
In the artists' words
"The lyric is an impressionistic mantra that pays homage to the spirit and desire of John Lennon's song 'Imagine.' 'Lullaby' features larger-than-life cellos that are processed through synthesizers and combined with instruments like key bass and plucked strings. This song has a wicked trance dance beat that supports the lyrics in a hypnotic way. Besides acoustic drum set and percussion, the song highlights a vintage Cascio sampling drum machine."