It's been more than a year since D.C.'s Beauty Pill dropped what became my favorite single of 2020. "Instant Night", raved about by me here, finally has a whole EP behind it. The Instant Night EP, out this Friday via Northern Spy Records, is another in a string of releases from Chad Clark and crew that please the ear as much as the mind.
"Instant Night" is still extraordinary, a precisely-spinning spinning top of a song, with lyrics suggesting the void that creeps up around us maybe no matter who's in the head office. The jazzy "Common Chokeberry" follows, a cousin to Clark's "Cherry Blossom Symphonette" in form and tone, though this is decidedly rougher around the edges (by intention). It's jazz for the future, or something like that. Elsewhere, "You Need a Better Mind" rides a Prince-like groove -- think the "If I Was Your Girlfriend" instrumental bed -- around a horn-laced, buoyant bit of chamber pop, for lack of a better term. Chad's wry lyrics hold things together until the instruments go in a bunch of interesting directions at once. This is the cerebral cousin to some of the stuff that Damon Locks makes, but, at least here, Clark seems more concerned with personal pursuits than political ones. Though, aren't they all the same? A bubbly remix of the cut closes out the Instant Night EP to recast the song in yet another fashion.
As always, anything Chad Clark touches is worth hearing, and this EP is no exception. There are hints here of a return to some of what we heard on the seminal Describes Things As They Are, but there are other pieces percolating all through Instant Night that give indication of new territory on Chad's radar, and that this is the start of a new part of his journey.
Instant Night is out Friday via Northern Spy Records.
More details on Beauty Pill via the band's official Facebook page.
[Photo: Cameron Whitman]