Outlaw the Dead is the latest ep by E.G. Phillips who is a San Francisco based Chicago bred musician. The Ep was recorded at Wally's Hide Out in San Francisco, produced by Chris McGrew, it has sadly become one of the last records recorded and mastered by the legendary Gary Hobish, who passed away recently in Golden Gate Park aged 70. E.G.'s or Ducks With Pants as he's often known's band includes Kevin Seal, Grace Renaud, Christopher Fortier and Chris McGrew among others.
This ep opens with Outlaw The Dead that appears to be about the sort of town that's run out of space, so they are digging up the cemetery ready to build on top of what used to be the city of the dead, not quite as bad as the Soviets bulldozing my families ancestral burial grounds, to turn it into a school playing field, but not far off, all this tale unfolds over haunting indie rock with the odd musical twist.
Boil The Ocean has tonal shifts with a carefully played piano for Duck Pants to emote over, with his worries that global warming might be about to Boil The Ocean creating a very Luciferian pit of despair, as Ducks With Pants vocals start to remind me of Robert Lloyd of The Nightingales crossed with Simon Bonney.
A Bridge Too Far (MacArthur Station) is a tale of the despair of missing your connecting train while trying to get home, a trauma many of us relate too, all too easily, this has a more laid-back folk-rock feel, with vocals from Grace Renaud who is somewhere in the gap between Barb Jungr and Sonya Hunter.
It Ain't Good To Be In Love With You has a hazy lazy laid back jazzy blues feel to this song of despair, for being in love with someone your better off without.
I Can Pay You (In Bottles Of Wine) is obviously a line E.G. has heard more times than he cares to mention, from club or bar owners, knowing that bottles of wine won't pay the rent, they aren't taken as payment by most normal business, the horns are weeping, hoping for a little respite from all the drunken shenanigans the wine causes.
The ep closes with I Am The One Who Ghosts sung in smokey lush tones by Mar Vilaseca, a slow gently evocative jazz blues smoulderer, with an imperious piano part from Kevin Seal, in many ways a perfect song for our times, as you hope and pray that Mar doesn't ghost you, as you need to chat to a singer with such a bewitching voice as soon as you can.
Find out more at https://egphillips.bandcamp.com/album/outlaw-the-dead http://www.duckswithpants.com/outlawthedead.html https://www.facebook.com/duckswithpants
