Ian Davis is a composer/songwriter/guitarist based in New York City. He has several outlets for his own music including the bands Relatives, Mushfoot, and Ian Davis: Rock Band. He is also a frequent collaborator with others and has worked as an orchestral arranger with artists such as Cassandra Jenkins, Blonde Redhead, and Daniel Rossen. Alternate/Opposite, Ian Davis: Rock Band’s second album, is scheduled for release on November 22, 2024 on the Figure & Ground label.
I’ve got to be honest. The first time I watched the new video for the new single “Words Escape Me” by Ian Davis: Rock Band, the rock band fronted by Ian Davis, I watched the whole thing. My eyes were fixed on the screen, and I gladly inhaled the heartfelt and hand-hewn stop-motion short created by Renata Zeiguer. It’s a really special thing, like a cosmic bird came to life after you dreamt it the night before and you woke up in a cold sweat shouting, “cosmic bird!” and it took all your refrigerator magnets on a quest across multiple time zones and got them back to you before the next business day. No harm, no fowl.
Yes, the first time through the video, I watched it and I loved it. I didn’t even look at my phone. Because it’s way over there, out of reach, to the side. But on the second viewing, my dumb fingers pulled my stupid vision one tab over to the rest of the stupid internet where I ended up reading an “article” about the “band” the Black Keys who just played a free concert in Ohio for anyone with a crypto wallet, part of a really cool sounding tour called The America Loves Crypto Tour, where a PAC tries to sway voters to elect candidates in swing states who are going to be gentlest on crypto currency regulation.
After I cleaned up my dinner that I barfed up on my laptop, I watched the Ian Davis: Rock Band video for the third time, and was welcomed back into its forgiving arms. The video didn’t care that I got yoinked into the swirl of the void. It happens to the best of us, the video said, as Ian Davis sang, “I try to say the right things, I feel so far away from my feelings.” There’s a blunt depth there that is often sorely missed in the music of today, or even yester-today.
I must confess that I have heard the whole album of forthcoming Ian Davis: Rock Band jammers, and it is a doozie. I simply love it and hope you give it a proper listen in the mosh pit of your mind. The moods shift throughout it, but the melodies are diabolically swerving this way and that while still keeping their hooks in you.
On my fourth viewing, the song is feeling better than ever. “Words Escape Me” sounds like what the Velvet Underground might sound like if they got along. I really have to wonder how this song and the Black Keys’ music can both be called “music.” I do believe at one point they did rock with earnest abandon, but at this point even some written words about the band makes me think bad thoughts, like how I hope their cybertruck runs out of electricity before the next charging station and that when they have to call a cab their credit card is in their other butler’s other pants.
Disastrously out of touch and trapped in an arena surrounded by crypto goons. Maybe that’s their own Sisyphussian fate. But the Ian Davis: Rock Band is safe from all that. There’s even a song on the new album about begging for a new line of credit. Man, it’s awesome. I can’t wait for you to hear it. But for now, enjoy “Words Escape Me.” I find the video really hits its stride on the fifth viewing.
— Adam Schatz
