In a landscape of musical artists walking around with their proverbial cameras on AUTO, 310 holds fast to the tradition of shooting manual. After choosing an open aperture in early 2020 with DoPING CHIEF and, later that same year, slowing their shutter speed throughout the archival spelunk of MoRPHEME, Joseph Dierker and Tim Donovan up the ISO setting on 20/21, making good on a promise to take an audible picture every time the date aligns with their moniker. In this unbroken mix of six, they absorb enough natural light to distinguish their subjects against a dark backdrop.

Dragged by the collar from another dimension into ours, their calling card sounds its cry to begin “Salad Goals.” A barking dog, unrequited string swells, bass beats, and vocal snippets enter the mix as if they were destined to break audible bread over a table over-fired in an urban kiln. The beauty here is hard-won; a relic of times when social distancing was a choice rather than an obligation. If this is a vehicle without a soul, then “Ciinkwia” is a soul without a vehicle. Both are citizens navigating the sidewalks in search of unmoving shelter. Echoes of childhood—a touch of sleigh bells, a thunderstorm, an electric guitar praying for a stage and a band with which to share it—are few and far between. Any notion of better times is a glass-sharp misnomer.

A hidden alley awaits in “Lado-Acheson,” where secrets are exhaled like so much cigarette smoke beneath a lone streetlight before the sunlight of “She Who Lunches” butters the city’s burnt-toast streets. “Branch Meridian” evokes a train lying on its back with a stomach ache, each glimmer of 12-string guitar a tingle of healing, while “Palliative Glare” pushes us into the oncoming traffic of time. In each of these images is a song waiting to die. Nothing to see here.

– Tyran Grillo

Eliza Fox – Vocals on She Who Lunches
Dennis Bass – Album Photo