Catch a Dinosaur’s Ambient Instrumental Jam “Minor Details” Takes the Imagination to Unexpected Places

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Catch a Dinosaur, Elevator Music cover (cropped)

Catch a Dinosaur’s instrumental ambient jam “Minor Details” has almost a progressive jazz fusion guitar line that runs throughout but it is paired with a swirling synth drone that gives the whole song an expansive, dreamlike quality. That the song comes from an album called Elevator Music could give one the impression of it being way cooler than average music for your elevator ride up a tall office building with walls displaying images of sunset at the beach. But it also suggests a montage of fun, easy times between more action oriented set pieces in a film. Say, for instance, Al Pacino’s character in Scarface, Tony Montana, never was in the army in Cuba, didn’t fall in with drug dealers and a cartel and didn’t go out in a flurry of bullets after alienating and killing people in his life that he loved. Instead, the Tony Montana of this song grew up maybe struggling but made his way through college and started his own, successful, legitimate business and discovered his joy in life in entertaining friends and family and lived for making positive, fun memories with creativity and a loving spirit. Those changes in Tony’s background and reaction to life are, after all, minor details but significant enough to make for a completely different life. Maybe Catch a Dinosaur had that sort of meaning in mind, making adjustments to your own thinking and approach to thinks, but the little details of tone, rhythm and melody of this song and the sound palette make it a more interesting than the individual elements alone. Listen to “Minor Details” on Spotify.

The Wistfully Romantic Mood of Catch a Dinosaur’s “Maybe You Just Wait” is the Perfect Song For These Dog Days of Summer

Catch a Dinosaur captures that perfect moment as you’re drifting off into a nap and and your mind wanders mixing contemplative reflection and a dreamstate with its single “Maybe You Just Wait.” The shimmering tremolo sound of the guitar and the vocals are reminiscent of Luna’s more chill moments and the way Dean Wareham can say so much with a pithy observation that is neither self-deprecating or aggressive in its analysis of a situation. There is a bittersweet flavor to the song once it gets into the main groove but the mood doesn’t get stuck there and brief guitar solos flare up that propel the song back into its wistfully romantic mood and again before the outro. There are angry breakup songs, this is more a hey maybe things aren’t working now and we need a break sort of vibe. Follow Catch a Dinosaur on Spotify.