AEM034 Boca Chica

Boca Chica is a Pitts­burgh based indie-folk band in the vein of Suf­jan Stevens, Neil Young, Arcade Fire, Joanna New­som, Gillian Welch, etc, etc… I use the term band, but in real­ity Boca Chica func­tions more like a col­lec­tive.  It’s a rotat­ing cast of char­ac­ters jam­ming along to the songs of Hal­lie Pritts.  Boca Chica began in 2004 as a duet fea­tur­ing Pritts (vocals, gui­tar) and Susanna Meyer (bass, vocals, flute).  Since then, the group has grown at a healthy clip.  In addi­tion to Pritts and Meyer, their lat­est album Lace Up Your Work­boots fea­tures Jeff Baron (gui­tar, banjo) Christo­pher McDon­ald, (keys, banjo, gui­tar, vibes, vocals, synths, sounds),  Lisa Camp­bell (Cello), Matt Miller (Drums, Vocals), Jeff Ryan (Drums), James Hart (Pedal Steel, Vocals), Dave Fla­herty (aux­il­iary per­cus­sion ), Drew Cec­cato (Elec­tronic Valve Instru­ment).  They’ve recently picked up a new drum­mer, Ricky Moslen, who does not appear on Lace Up Your Work­boots but will appear on the next album.  And it’s not uncom­mon for addi­tional friends, includ­ing the entire cast of Cud­dle Magic, to join them on stage.  You get the pic­ture.  With eleven-plus mem­bers and twenty-something instru­ments between them, the per­mu­ta­tions are pretty much endless.The name Boca Chica (Span­ish for Lit­tle Mouth) was cho­sen on a some­what of a whim.  Pritts and Meyer were slated to per­form at a folk fes­ti­val and think­ing that “Pritts & Meyer” sounded too much like “old man jazz” they decided to choose some­thing new, even­tu­ally set­tling on Boca Chica.  There wasn’t a lot of thought behind it, but Boca Chica is a more fit­ting name than Pritts and Meyer could have pos­si­bly imag­ined at the time.  Why?  Because for an eleven mem­ber col­lec­tive, per­haps the most strik­ing thing about Boca Chica is that they know how to shut up.  Really.  Often large ensem­bles fall into the trap of try­ing to play over one another rather than with each other but not so with Boca Chica.  They never step on each oth­ers toes.  This band lit­er­ally can go to eleven, but usu­ally they hover around four or five, and some­times bring­ing it all the way down to one.  The dynamic range is astounding.

A-side “Lake Erie” is the first cut off Lace Up Your Work­boots and the album’s most obvi­ous hit sin­gle.  It’s got­ten mod­er­ate radio play in recent months, reach­ing #16 on the Roots charts and #2 on the Penn­syl­va­nia Roots Charts—“yes, that actu­ally exists,” Pritts admits with a chuckle—and it’s easy to under­stand why.  It’s acces­si­ble but not in an overly famil­iar way, and mem­o­rable enough to prompt repeat lis­tens.  The tune begins with a softly plucked banjo riff, later mir­rored on acoustic gui­tar.  Drums sneak in and then Pritts’s soprano pierces through the mix.  An ascend­ing cello line creeps in at the B theme (“I met a dog, he stole my song…”) pro­vid­ing just enough har­monic motion to tear the heart­strings.  And McDon­ald’s shim­mer­ing vibes make for a nice musi­cal inter­lude before an impres­sive cli­max.  I’m not talk­ing about cli­max in a cheap Hol­ly­wood sense.  I’m talk­ing about cli­max as a dra­matic tech­nique, a “deci­sive turn­ing point in the action” or the moment from which the out­come becomes inevitable.  As soon that per­sis­tent 8^th–note snare kicks in at around 2:25, a build is put in motion.  An orches­tra kicks in—cello and ele­gantly bowed upright bass—before the song finally erupts out of neces­sity into a quiet refrain.

“Out in the dark and dead of night
I dug a hole, for to leave behind
But by the morning’s pierc­ing rays
Show that some things though buried
Do not decay…”

Ulti­mately, “Lake Erie” is noth­ing short of what Pritts describes it as: “a heav­ily orches­trated song about death.” And what could be more fun than that?

B-side “Like Sheep in the Night” is a lit­tle more out there.  When I first heard the title “Like Sheep in the Night” I imag­ined a bizarre hybrid of Frank Sinatra’s Strangers in the Night and an insomnia-induced men­tal break­down.  Not quite, but the result is equally intrigu­ing.  First of all, the lyrics are pri­mar­ily in French, with selected lines in Eng­lish.  Pritts used to live in France and had been toy­ing with the idea of writ­ing a song en fran­cais for a while.   “It’s kind of silly and a real French per­son would prob­a­bly scoff at it because it doesn’t make a ton of sense,” she admits, “but I liked the way the words went together.  It’s vaguely about wan­der­ing around a French city look­ing for an open bar.” Like sheep in the night…

“Les mou­tons de la nuit
Trou­vent mes yeux rem­plis
Oh bien dormi!
Keep on evad­ing me.”

Or, a sig­nif­i­cantly less poetic Eng­lish translation:

“Sheep in the night
Find my eyes full
Oh good sleep
Keep on evad­ing me”

Meyer’s vocal har­monies add a lot to the mix, empha­siz­ing the last line in each stanza.  But oddly enough, for a French song, the music is decid­edly Amer­i­can.  The pedal steel gui­tar and clas­sic three chord pro­gres­sion scream coun­try.  The solo sec­tion is yet another beau­ti­ful anom­aly.  I call it a solo sec­tion, but these aren’t solos—they’re just a few notes.  First, a melod­ica blast. Then, lit­tle elec­tric piano blips reveal a funkier side to the song that the band flirts with with­out fully indulging in.  Every­thing a solo should be, minus the solo.

So what’s next for Boca Chica?  Brian Kras­man describes Lace Up Your Work­boots as “a top-notch, major-league record that eas­ily and right­fully should be their ticket out of town and onto the ros­ter of a major indie label.” I couldn’t agree more.  The entire album is mel­low gold.  Back­seat will send you into a reflec­tive stu­por and Valentine’s epic end­ing will build you back up again.   As for being a ticket out of town, so far the band seems con­tent with their sur­round­ings, but hopes to expand their gig­ging radius.  Record labels take note.

Nate Green­berg

Side A — Lake Erie Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Side B — Like Sheep in the Night Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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