Freak Scene #65: Splendid Torch Light a New Path on 'Icon'
Plus, the latest album from Smith alumna Merrill Garbus's band Tune-Yards makes the revolution danceable, even as a bunch of emotionally stunted dipshits in Washington do their best to gut the arts.
A Guide to Music in Western Mass. (and sometimes Connecticut)
This week in Freak Scene, we get the scoop on Western Mass. roots band Splendid Torch, the successor to Mamma’s Marmalade. Plus, in advance of Merrill Garbus’ Northampton homecoming next week, I consider the new album by her band Tune-Yards, which I’m happy to say exceeded my expectations. Also, the proposal by some emotionally stunted dipshits to zero out the 2026 budget for the National Endowment for the Arts will have a real effect in Western Mass.
In the best-laid-plans department, Icon, the first album from Splendid Torch, was supposed to have been the fourth LP from Mamma’s Marmalade. The Northampton-area string band had already finished recording a dozen songs for the follow-up to 2022’s Rabbit Analog, working for the first time with a drummer to explore a sound that singer and fiddle player Lily Sexton calls more “genre agnostic.” The band was in the midst of figuring out touring plans when Mamma’s Marmalade singer and mandolin player Mitch Bordage bowed out, citing the tricky logistics of going on the road and holding down a job.
“We were like, ‘Totally fair. What do we do with this album?’” says Sexton, who co-founded Mamma’s Marmalade in 2014 with Bordage, whom she met as a freshman at UMass Amherst. “Mitch and I clicked pretty instantaneously. I spent a decade on the road with him, so trying to imagine not playing with him was really hard and I'll still be up there sometimes and really wish that I could look over and see him, but it’s difficult to tour. It’s difficult to give basically all your free time, and he already works a full-time job.”
Because the point of releasing an album is often to help build career momentum, it didn’t make sense to Sexton to put out a final Mamma’s Marmalade LP. Instead, she and Mamma’s guitarist Sean Davis repurposed two-thirds of the songs for a new project with the rest of the crew they recorded with: Josh Ballard on bass and Karl Helander on drums. Last fall, they decided to call the new group Splendid Torch.
“It worked out perfectly to have thought, ‘Let’s do an album with a new sound,’ and actually it’s a new band,” Sexton says, laughing.
Splendid Torch retains the rootsy, acoustic vibe of Mamma’s Marmalade, in large part because the eight songs on Icon feature all the members of Mamma’s Marmalade. Sexton sings ruefully about just trying to get by on the title track, which opens the album with a gently pulsing beat from Bordage’s mandolin and Helander’s brushed drums. Later, Sexton’s fiddle holds sway on the country barroom weeper “You Can’t Hate Me for That.” Davis sings on a few tracks, too, including “Pouring,” which also features his virtuosic guitar playing and lovely close-harmony vocals with Sexton. (They recorded four additional tracks with Bordage on lead vocals, which he took with him for his next project.)
Splendid Torch have already been out on tour, which has meant adjusting to a new dynamic within the band — and the new possibilities that they represent. Davis, for example, has switched mostly to electric guitar onstage, while Sexton plays as much acoustic guitar now as fiddle.
“Everybody is like a Swiss Army knife in our band: good at tons of stuff,” says Sexton, who now lives in Turners Falls. “And then with Karl on the drums, we have more opportunities than we had. We’re not just locked into the bluegrass venues. We can play slightly more rock 'n' roll rooms. Maybe not the most rock clubs of the rock clubs, but a little bit more breathing room, which I'm really having a lot of fun with.”
Splendid Torch perform with High Tea tonight, Friday, May 9, at the Drake in Amherst (tickets).
Tune-Yards Make Revolution Danceable on ‘Better Days’
Truth be told, I tuned out of Tune-Yards after their 2018 album I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life, “a 12-track examination of the insidious effects of unthinking racism and white privilege, as perceived by a white woman with a penchant for African-inspired rhythms.” That’s what I wrote at the time for Paste in a review concluding that the album was a slog to listen to and a self-absorbed effort at expiation by frontwoman Merrill Garbus.
Fortunately, the Smith College alumna and her partner Nate Brenner take a different tack on Tune-Yards’ latest, Better Dreaming. The album comes out May 16, just after Garbus returns to Northampton with a performance Tuesday, May 13, at the Iron Horse with JayWood (tickets). Better Dreaming is more playful, even joyful, on songs that aren’t such a heavy lift, but still have a social awareness about them.
As on previous efforts, Garbus uses her voice as an additional percussion instrument, but also gives herself over to layers of prismatic harmonies on tracks with deep funk roots. With breathy vocals and a roving bassline over a mesmerizing beat, “Never Look Back” is as tuneful a song as she’s ever written, while “Limelight” rides a clacking beat as Garbus sends streams of intertwining vocal parts spinning through the whorls of rhythm.
In the press material, Garbus says she wasn’t sure whether to include “Limelight,” because it felt trite to sing lines like “the kids are all right” and “we all get free in the family” when, as the civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer once said, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” But it’s a different, probably apocryphal quote from the anarchist Emma Goldman that seems more applicable to Better Dreams: “If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.”
Regional Arts Groups Fall Victim to Funding Cuts
Bombyx in Florence and Mass MoCA in North Adams are among the arts organization in Western Mass. that are feeling the effects of cutbacks and the cancellation of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts by the authoritarian bedwetters in Washington.
Mass MoCA last week received a letter terminating an already-awarded grant in support of Jeffrey Gibson’s commission Power Full Because We’re Different, an immersive exhibition featuring seven oversized garments representing indigenous faith-based regalia, and exploring the concept prevalent in many indigenous communities of “two-spirit,” a third gender that is neither (and both) male or female.
“As painful as this is financially, what is more so is the diminishment of our revered national agencies and their staff after decades of service in elevating our national creativity, innovation and cultural contributions,” Kristy Edmunds, the director of Mass MoCA, wrote in an email to supporters.
At Bombyx, cuts to the NEA and this adminstration’s penchant for clawing back money that has already been awarded will impact current and future programming. In an email to patrons, Bombyx included a link to a boilerplate letter that can be personalized and sent to Congressional representatives in Washington. For most of us in Western Mass., that’s Rep. Jim McGovern, who represents the 2nd Congressional District (which includes Franklin County and most of Hampshire County), or Rep. Richard Neal, who represents the 1st District (including Springfield and all of Berkshire County).
In Memory of Jill Sobule
This is terrible news: the folk-pop singer Jill Sobule, who was scheduled to perform May 31 at the Iron Horse in Northampton, died May 1 in a house fire in Woodbury, Minn., outside Minneapolis. She was 66. Sobule was probably best known for her song "Supermodel," which appeared on the soundtrack to the 1995 film Clueless, and "I Kissed a Girl," a drily satiric number that Sobule wrote 13 years before Katy Perry sought to titillate with a song by the same title in 2008.
Upcoming Concerts
The Iron Horse hosts Nicole Atkins July 29 (tickets), Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley Aug. 10 (tickets), Rose City Band Sept. 19 (tickets), Mipso Sept. 26 (tickets), Ana Popovic Sept. 30 (tickets) and, in a return engagement, Fantastic Cat Dec. 13 (tickets).
Secret Planet presents the Congolese dance band Loboko with the Botswana afro-futurist pop musician Lollise this Saturday, May 10, at the Marigold Theater in Easthampton (tickets). Northampton psychedelic-funk band Shantyman plays May 30 (tickets).
The Parlor Room’s upcoming lineup includes Wallace Field and Noble Dust Sept. 13 (tickets), an album release show by the Mammals Sept. 27 (tickets) and Driftwood Nov. 21 (tickets).
Summer is a-coming, which means free outdoor shows. In Greenfield, Hawks and Reed will set up outside at Court Square for Sen Morimoto June 28, with the Frost Heaves & Hales, Big Destiny and Eric Hnatow of Home Body doing an electronic set. July 26 features Madison McFerrin with Daisy Skelton, Kimaya Diggs, Kendra McKinley and DJ Badcatch. Aug. 30, catch STL Gold and Tem Blessed and Blessed Energy. Sept. 27, it’s Leon Trout, the Narcotix and the Faith Ann Band.
Descendents play Aug. 9 at College Street Music Hall in New Haven (tickets).
District Music Hall in Norwalk hosts Phantogram Sept. 10 (tickets), Soccer Mommy Sept. 18 (tickets), Life of Agony Sept. 21 (tickets), Geordie Greep Sept. 22 (tickets) and Panchiko Sept. 27 (tickets).
That does it for this week, but Freak Scene is always seeking submissions. You can send music for coverage consideration to erdanton at gmail or reply to this email. Check out these guidelines first.
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