this has been a long time coming for Samuel Sandoval. it’s so easy to say that an album has been a “lifetime in the making”; art comes from influences (known, unknown, and imagined) that we’ve accumulated just by being alive. you can pick any album you like, hold it up to the light, squint your eyes, and guess where its each and every sound originates. “ah! that fuzzy distortion, that comes from her teenage years, when she was obsessed with punk rock,” for example, or “those synth keys? they added those after an unexpected conversation with a friend.” all of those moments come from somewhere, but that somewhere has never been clear as on Current Pretender, Samuel Sandoval’s new album.
or, maybe i shouldn’t call it an album. he doesn’t, after all. let me explain.
after one of Sandoval’s sets, i went up to the merch table and asked about his music. “this is the album,” he pointed to one row, “and this is the EP, Tupper.”
i picked up a copy of Tupper, and said “nice, i think i listened to this on the way here.”
“can i see that?” he gestured toward the EP, and i handed it to him. he opened up its paper case and pulled out a small note with a number on it. “oh, yeah, this has a bonus track on it,” and then he laughed, “the initial run of Tupper is unique, and every copy has a different bonus track on it.”
“oh wow, how many different songs are there?”
“there’s at least 20!”
“so if i want to hear those tracks, i’d need to buy every copy of Tupper you have?”
and he laughed and said “the original idea is that you might trade them around, but i’ve been thinking about releasing them all as a collection one day in the future.”
Sandoval has been hesitant to call Current Pretender an album because it’s a comfortable collection of songs, never quite intended to hang together the same way that the songs on his previous records do. there’s no overarching narrative or theme. no, instead, these songs are more of an assembly of short stories, but these are short stories of an autobiography. every song, some more developed than others, is a snippet from Sandoval’s life, populated with his memories. people and places, childhood games and nicknames, loves and fears. and at least i say that its Sandoval’s life — i trust him at face value that the first-perspective narrator in Current Pretender is often Sandoval (just like you may have trusted that i was one of the characters in the above anecdote).
and it’s easy to take Current Pretender at face value because Sandoval is a disarming narrator. with little more than his voice, an acoustic guitar, and the lyrical pen of a poet, he spends 21 tracks carving out distinct, clear ideas from a lifetime of memories. the influences aren’t what shape the album — the influences are the album!
here are my three favorite moments of Current Pretender:
“mom’s birthday”: as one of the busiest songs on the record, it mirrors the energy of a family home with precocious children. there are several fantastic lines that, on their own, could be their own short stories: “my father says he’s in love / but he makes stories up so he can eat in peace.” what i love most, however, are the short breaks that happen when Fiona is mentioned by name; strong short bursts of melody following her around on cue.
“george’s raft of a suitcase”: restless in a different way, Sandoval allows the song to circle around until periodically pinning it down with a steady rhythm. these moments, when Sandoval’s ideas and strums seem to perfectly and cosmically align, result in excellent lines like “no one’s jealous of the satisfied look you get when you’re right”. just mull that line over in your head! how good is that? and Current Pretender is full of this!
“falling asleep to your parents watching TV, Pt. 2”: one of the few instances of non-guitar instrumentation, this piano-driven ballad is your cue that Current Pretender is over. think of it like a theater gradually letting up the lights. as the song fades out, you hear the murmur of other voices, and it’s at that time that you realize your surroundings, what time it is, or what you should be doing. “oh,” you laugh “i guess i kind of got lost in that for a while.” you’ve been released, and even though Current Pretender may be over, you realize how much your own life is filled with stuff. it’s filled with similar people and places, childhood games and nicknames, loves and fears, that you witnessed on Current Pretender, and in that way, you see your life slightly differently than you did before.
