Musical Collective To Check Out: Maison Hall - 'Produce' (Single)
What immediately stood out for me was Maison Hall's ineptness for songwriting. 'Produce' paints a restless and vivid lyrical picture of loneliness, boredom, and defeat, wishing for a rainfall to revive and revitalise everything in its reach, Emotive vocals and equally delicate instrumentation chugs along, simply existing, confined, contemplating, waiting for the rain that never comes.
Then the sky darkens and the cloud thickens and Maison Hall erupt into a last minute thunderstorm of noise, unleashing a cathartic fury of sound that you just don't see coming. But its better that way. While some may argue that the song would work better as a gradual sonic climax. I like that on first listen, the composition is seemingly directionless then out of nowhere catches you off guard. It gives breathing room to the vocals, to the lyrics, and the space to build an emotional connection with more graceful instrumentation without distraction.
Helmed by 21-year old Joe Kneipp, 'Produce' features on 'Maison Hall's' debut album, 'It Was Never About Me' recorded in a dilipidated masonic as a duo with drummer Ben Byron.
On the album Joe explains: "Ben and I played for six days: guitar, drums, and vocals in that little hall. Our equipment broke. My amp hummed incessantly. We got sick from the cold and the dust.
The end result of those six days is the LP 'It Was Never About Me'. Its creation was cathartic, and relevant, and juvenile, and many other superlatives, but above all else it was completely fucking necessary. It was so important to just sing these 10 silly songs, songs I wrote when I was 18, songs about inconsequential, existential, angsty, pervasive restlessness and (whatever!)."
Maison Hall are a talented and intelligent collective as equally moving as they are visceral. Keep an eye on them.
Words of Karla Harris