Mick Strauss

 

There’s many a tale to be found out on the open road, something Mick Strauss knows only too well. An itinerant soul, over his 30-odd years Strauss has always wandered far and wide, his curiosity piqued by people and their cultures. And it was one such trip, undertaken in 2019, that shaped the sound and stories of his debut album Southern Wave–six months journeying through the heart of the United States, his adopted homeland, from Duluth down through Missouri to the Louisiana coast.

“It’s a chronicle of the middle of the middle,” says Strauss of the record and the months on the road that inspired it. “It was hard, and sad–the people there were hardened by the times and it was before COVID struck ! But I felt at home with them.” Snippets of real conversations are sprinkled throughout, as are field recordings that capture the American heartland: waves crashing in a cave on Lake Superior; train announcements at Chicago’s Union Station, roadside thoughts from anonymous geniuses.

And so Southern Wave wears its midwestern heart on its sleeve, informed by wide-open vistas, the plains and the sun and the age-old tale of the wandering loner, on a journey that’s as metaphorical as it is literal. Yet there’s a stiff, hard edge to the music too, a crispness that’s redolent of the hard-bitten Soviet east, or a Chinese Desert. Strauss’ musical concept was clear–transplant elements of No Wave’s atonality, abrasiveness, and thick musical textures to the warm, dusty south. Hence the title.

“I wanted a balance between cold and sensual, and Southern and sweaty,” says Strauss. The tension between these two poles fuels Southern Wave’s twelve tracks, pulling the songs into interesting shapes. Gated drums propel guitars drenched in reverb and tremolo; crusty, buzzsaw riffs give way to dark, ominous modular synths and swooping strings. Recording to ½ inch tapegives the music a rich depth and authentic feel, adding to these songs’ heft. And draped over all this is Strauss’ laconic, sing-speak drawl; a little Jonathon Richman, some Neil Young, a lot Lou Reed.

On stage Strauss and his songs hit you with a chill. With a mop of unruly black hair and a billowing,patchwork shirt, Strauss scans like the Pied Piper of the itinerant, a madcap sage delivering talesfrom beyond the horizon. Yet fixing his audience with a steely stare, there’s real conviction in hisvoice. Intensity too, shining through in lines like: “Every heart sings to the dance”; double so whenhis vocals are intertwined with keyboardist Jennifer E. Hutt. His band–made up of musicianswho’ve played with the likes of Will Oldham, Beck, Air, and produced for Tony Allen and Foals–power everything ably on, the perfect frame for Strauss to work his magic.