“Triplet No.2: Desire,” A Departure for Stello
New York City-based Stello is the project of musician and producer Kit Conway. His music has been branded as a psych-rock band making music for nighthawks at the diner and quiet walks late at night in the city. His most recent release, “Triplet No.2: Desire,” is the follow-up to “Triplet No.1: Apollo,” which came three years after his first EP, “Five Nite.”
A lot has changed in three years. The chipper and innocent guitar lines, melodies and stories found in “Five Nite” have been traded for the more experienced, stylized, and misty sounds and lyrics found in his most recent series of releases (with some hints and nods to the past). Although the series of small releases are cohesive, this continuation casts a very different mood than the first one.
“Triplet No.2: Apollo” starts off with the track “Even If I Don’t,” which is studiously reminiscent of “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker.” The reverb-drenched guitar that invites us into the song on top of a pulsing and fuzzy synthesizer (similar to a glacially-paced old alarm clock going off) is hypnotic. Conway’s vocals are pragmatic, bouncing between raw singing and beautiful falsettos. As the song progresses, the detune of the sparse guitar lines lets us know the rising action of our journey is nearing a climax.
At the halfway mark, Conway’s singing, like a hand guiding us through a garden of sounds, drops, and a synthesizer takes its place. The solo puts images in my head of the story “Young Goodman Brown”: we are lost, running through a chaotic forest of synth, hearing cries of Conway lost in the distance, until we stumble upon a joyous clearing where we find ourselves reunited with him.
“Struck By U” is a higher tempo and bass-driven track suggestive of dance and disco music. I imagine a funk-inspired Paul McCartney would create something similar, with the bouncing and melodic bass track and horn-like guitars heralding the coming vocals. The backing vocals coupled with the bass induce a mesmerizing trance in which you can’t help but bob your head.
The third and final track of the triplet is titled “Easy.” This song’s title is pretty funny to me, because after two dense and moody tracks, this comes as a breath of fresh air and is very easy to listen to. The light acoustic guitar, coupled with the electric guitar’s melody, reminds me of a hair-carrying and embracing warm breeze found on ocean shores. The deliberate percussion plays well with the bouncy and fat bassline. As the song closes, instruments slowly begin to drop until it is just a piano and faint backing guitar playing a small outro.
Tasteful ambiguity is hard to come by. Prince and Bowie were masters of this: treading the line between genre and tone, as well as many other areas. I think we have a budding star student in the art of ambiguity here with “Triplet No.2: Desire.” The blend of acoustic and electronic instruments, happy/sad sounding chords, and diverse harmonic structures similar to those found in jazz and R&B songs but still asserting themselves as rock are evidence of this. The songs on this release are sexy; even the name “Triplet No.2: DESIRE” hints at this. Themes of lust as well as genuine yearning are prevalent throughout the lyrics. Conway has parted from the young and borderline-naïve love stories found on “Five Nite” and truly come into himself as a mature artist with “Triplet No.2: Desire.”