“Big Elsewhere” by vireo sounds like something a bunch of super creative kids wrote in their tree house long before forming an actual band. It has that quality of openness and a sense of wonder and an unhurried spirit. Its chiming guitar work and bird-like keyboard melodies behind tender vocals individually and in harmony. The music video, made by Suzanne Gomes, looks like a fall weekend spent on the coast with gray skies and choppy waters. It’s all the spontaneous aesthetics of Super-8 and no strict narrative structure, just images like what you might shoot if you weren’t planning but merely documenting your experience for yourself. And the song feels like that too. It’s a mere one minute, fifty-three seconds but in that time vireo sounds both like a futuristic indie pop thing informed by the sort one heard and experienced in warehouses and house shows in the 2000s and early 2010s. The kind of music that has an undeniable charm and appeal but always very home made feeling like the choices of instrumentation are idiosyncratic executed with an unexpected originality. Maybe someone would call this band shoegaze but the sound is much more in line with the kind of borderline twee, dream pop folk that would fit well on a bill with say a Stephen Steinbrink or Microphones. Even Wolf Colonel. Its an intimate and inviting sound that seems to be a part of the group’s style that resonates strongly with the DIY musical experience of a decade and more ago. Watch the video for “Big Elsewhere” on YouTube and follow Pittsburgh’s vireo at the links below.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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