Luke Rathbone
opening for Travis
Thursday, September 26th
$32, doors at 7:30
Anyone looking for an all-encompassing statement-of purpose for
SOFT, the hyper-caffeinated new record from
Rathborne will find it in the first line of the second song when
Luke Rathborne – chief songwriter and principle persona – hiccups, “Heard you gotta get it in motion.” From that moment on,
SOFT never stops moving bounding from one jagged-edged song to the next, marrying the fast-and-loose ethos of
Nobunny with the unhinged garage pop of
Ty Segall and the melodic ease of classic
R.E.M. and
Big Star. ”The feeling of the record is incredible energy,” says
Rathborne. ”Youthfulness, lust – the feeling of breaking out of yourself, unchaining yourself, forcing yourself to be free.”
That same spirit of optimism and restlessness also characterizes
Rathborne‘s career
to date. He learned how to play guitar at age 12, when a stranger who
was passing through the small town in Northern Maine where
Rathborne lived
left the instrument at his house (“There was a lot of freewheelin’
types passing through my house when we were kids,” he chuckles).
Inspired by the DIY spirit of punk rock, he recorded his first album,
After Dark,
when he was just 16 years old, sneaking into the recording studio of
his local college late at night and teaching himself how to use the
equipment. “I guess ambition when you’re young is really unusual,”
Rathborne says, “But I just couldn’t really find a place in high school.”
Rathborne relocated to New York when he was just 18, where he connected with famed
Tin Pan Alley producer
Joey Levine. From there,
Rathborne began steadily honing his skills, booking himself a weeklong UK tour, netting a slot opening for
The Strokes at
SXSW and recording the EP
I Can Be One/Dog Years, which earned him an appearance on the
BBC 6 Music. “In the course of making those records,” he says, “I’ve gone from being a 16-year-old kid to being an adult.”
That maturity is evident throughout
SOFT, a story of heartbreak and redemption that told in spit-shined
Buddy Holly vocal melodies. Produced by
Rathborne and
Emery Dobyns (
Antony & the Johnsons,
Battles,
Noah & the Whale), with mixing and co-production by
Gus Oberg and
The Strokes‘
Albert Hammond, Jr., the record nestles honey-sweet hooks inside tangles of guitar and
Darren Will‘s percolating bass. “Some of the punk bands I had been in as a teenager sounded like this,”
Rathborne says, ”So it’s a ‘return to punk’ for me in some ways.”
That comes through in songs like
“Wanna Be You,” where
Rathborne sighs and pines over a whistling synth line and a taut cluster of guitar that recalls vintage
Nick Lowe. “That’s really a song about identity,”
Rathborne explains.
“It’s about figuring out why people love each other, why they want to
be each other, and when that crosses the line.”
“Last Forgiven,” which
Rathborne says is about “redemption and yearning,” cruises and dips like a roller coaster going half-speed.
Despair and hope co-mingle in
“So Long NYC,” a speed-racing,
Guided By Voices-style power-pop number in which
Rathborne flips
the mythologizing associated with New York on its head. ”It’s like the
antithesis of a Frank Sinatra song,” he says. ”There was a point for
about a year where I was crashing between peoples’ apartments, walking
around feeling hungry. I would work in a bar near Union Square and then
walk around the streets after it was dark. Wandering through New York
City late at night when everyone else was asleep, It made me feel like I
had stumbled onto something secret.”
That contradictory impulse – romanticism and cynicism, energy and exhaustion, is what powers
SOFT, and
what dusts its cotton candy melodies with a fine layer of grit. ”As
you get older, the feeling of being drawn between love and cynicism
grows exponentially – almost like someone in medieval times being
stretched out on a rack,”
Rathborne says. “Art is about making a connection between those things.” That’s what
Rathborne does throughout
SOFT, and the results are as infectious as they are complex. “There’s something hidden in there for everyone,”
Rathborne explains. ”We’re
all reaching for something, and art helps people deal with
those things. I hope people realize the album is about something deeper
than what’s on the surface. It’s a record about hope and redemption and
energy and possibility. And hopefully, it can be a record about
people’s lives.”
