Cameron Winter: Heavy Metal

The first time I listened to this album I pretty much looked around to make sure I wasn’t being  punked. My brain asked me what the hell we were doing here. This weird troubadour dude and his oddball voice and honking music. Is this for real or a put on. I looked around again to make sure there was no sound leak and someone might think I was listening to an insane person ranting on a record over old-fashioned instruments. Nope, everyone on the train was scrolling TikTok or playing some addictive ball-crusher game or whatever as usual. Nobody noticed that I’d actually started to enjoy this craziness. This less cabaret version of Beirut. This way less punk, out-of-its-head version of Neutral Milk Hotel. A less Americana Beck? Or a hymnal-like mash-up of all that.

The thing is, I’d apparently experienced Cameron Winter before. When I heard his band, Geese, whose album, Projector, I actually reviewed. Where they this odd? This weirdly addictive? This artistic? Turns out, not at all. Which is surprising considering how specific Winter’s genius is. Not to put that label on him — because he is an acquired taste. One, for instance, that Hipster Jr. Jr. did not appreciate when I played one of his songs in the car. And, when viewed though the lens of another person’s experience, may fall apart a little bit. As if the veil of the cult is lifted from my eyes when looking at the pinched face of a 16-year old’s displeasure of what she’s hearing. It’s both disconcerting and disheartening. Is she right, are we just hearing something that isn’t there? Have I gone ear blind? I was puzzled why she wasn’t as enthralled as I was.

And then I realized I’d only listened to this album through headphones. Good headphones. And you know what? The song I was playing her, “Nausicaä,” sounds fucking cool. Is it rock ‘n’ roll? Perhaps not. Can a teenager appreciate the sweet production and almost 70s FM thing going on through our shitty VW speakers? Also probably not. But her nostalgia frame of reference is like Maroon 5 and late-stage Diplo, so what does she know? Does it matter Winter is way closer to her age than mine? It does not. Do I care that I have no clue what this man is going on about? I do not. Some of my favorite artists sing nonsense. Does it hurt my atheistic heart when he turns drunken preacher and laments and exclaim in religious ecstasy, “God is real. I’m not kidding, God is real!” on “$0”? Yes, yes it does. But who knows what side of his face he’s speaking out of when he says that? It’s not clear at all here what’s earnest and what is artistry. Either way, this is a weird, cool record that the kids will never get. Toffifay, punks. Toffifay.