Ty Baron invokes cinematic monsters across decades in the new Vases song “Contact” to convey a sense of haunted self-alienation. Stylistically it’s darker and more somber than we’ve come to expect from the songwriter whose gift for artful psychedelic pop is well established with the project. But with this song and its more darkwave flavor Baron brings to bear his ear for crafting rich melodies and mastery of the use of space. The song takes us through dense and up close moments and those seemingly more adrift in a darkened space like the songwriter is wandering around in his own, surrealistic nightmare, the kind where there is no immediate threat, just a sense of unease and dread. Yet Baron leaves us with a sense of closure from those feelings by the end of the song even as its captivating mood lingers on. Listen to “Contact” on Spotify and follow Vases on Instagram.
Vases has experimented with style and production on every single and “The Softest Sigh” demonstrates Ty Baron’s command of lush and clear melodies with strong rhythmic lines layered together. The sparkling guitar riff is at times reminiscent of New Order’s “Age of Consent” but the song swings into deeply introspective passages that take the certainty and direct energy of that aspect of the song and transitions it into ethereal, introspective passages in the choruses. It seems to embody the subjects of the song that seem to be able the uncertainty that pervades most of human existence and so many relationships in this moment that Baron attributes to “symptoms of modern life” and when he sings that line it rings incredibly true. Rarely has existential angst and frustration sounded so gorgeously hopeful if melancholic. The summation at the end of the song “I tried to be the perfect me, I guess I’ll be alright” is a poignant statement of how many of us are expected to meet some arbitrary standard that we may never attain but settle for being satisfied with giving it an effort even if it’s not quite enough and is it worth giving your all for everything the way you’ve been told your whole life if you’re an American? Not really. And Baron expresses in this song in his way how managing your expectations and preserving your sanity is often the best that can realistically be expected of anyone. Listen to “The Softest Sigh” on Spotify and follow Vases on Instagram.
Ty Baron sure knows how to make being real and emotionally honest sound so raw and triumphant on his new Vases song “Champagne Lust.” With songwriting cast in an mode of urgent and earnest power pop, incredibly catchy hooks, emotionally charged vocals and all, Baron gives us a litany of the pitfalls, down sides, disillusioning experiences, the compromises, the unglamorous aspects of living in a city where everyone is expected to be faking some aspects of their lives and beyond doing so as a means of getting ahead in certain contexts, rather, all contexts. Baron truly captures how that social dynamic can erode your faith in other people or more precisely coming to the certain knowledge that you don’t even know why anyone is participating in the collective charade that doesn’t feel like you’re doing anything real and important—just going through the motions because it’s what’s expected, it’s an old habit that has outlived its utility in any way whatsoever and being in a place where everything is a reminder of the illusion of progress, of counterfeit feelings and the expectation of projecting positivity at times when doing so is corrosive to your soul. The lines where Baron sings about “nobody should tie your tongue” or “don’t bite your tired tongue” and then “honey control your champagne lust” is straight to the point of how we can fool ourselves into thinking we want something that just isn’t worth it in the end so we aren’t real and that feels so gross down the line like David Herman’s character Michael Bolton in the 1999 comedy Office Space when he tells the corporate stooges who assume that he must love the musician because they share the same name and he just smiles and goes along and later hates himself a little. Baron is reminding us with this powerful song that it’s probably better to not get in the habit of doing and saying things that make you hate yourself a little just to grease wheels that no longer serve your life and maybe never did. Listen to “Champagne Lust” on Soundcloud and connect with Vases on Instagram.
When “Comfort Creature” by Vases starts out with its headlong pace and introspective vocals reminiscent of Beach Fossils or the better end of The Strokes, you’d be excused for not expecting some fairly heady political commentary. The fluid traces of the main guitar riff sounds like something one might better expect out of an indie pop band influenced by The Smiths but Ty Baron comes in with very direct and poetically rendered lines critical of the fake system of inherited meritocracy that poisons all levels of American and really most of world society and convinces most people they’re more worthy than they are just because they’ve enjoyed privilege all their lives. But Baron takes this content further and points to the culture’s “fetish for the young and all their creature comforts” as if when you’re past a certain age you have nothing to contribute to the world and should just get to some place of complacency in a career doing exactly what these days? Maybe mainstream media and “moderate” politicians haven’t been paying attention but that façade crumbled for most people decades ago but now the fallout is eroding and shattering corrupt institutions, unspoken and official, and too many corners of society are resisting going to a better place and too willing to crawl over others to hold on to the splintered remnants of these rungs on which they’ve been hanging for years unexamined and crying out in disbelief when people are demanding more than crumbs, glass ceilings and diminished expectations out of a world where a very few get everything and most have to scramble for perilously little. Maybe Baron isn’t quite as dire than that and his lyrics are far more elegant and personal than all of that but this song is a taste of his forthcoming Vases album that promises to be brimming with similarly vital political content. Listen to “Comfort Creature” on Soundcloud and follow Vases on Instagram linked below.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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