Songs of Necessity

I recently overheard some musicians and songwriters musing over the musical genius that would ensue if they could simply drop everything and retreat to a prominent studio for a few weeks to develop and record an album. Several thoughts came to my mind. Among them- If you truly believed this, you would make it happen. Then, I began to smirk as I reflected on a host of friends with unfinished opus “rock operas” that were twenty years in the making. And lastly, I settled on the thought that if everyone could embrace where their music, their personal lives, and their artistic economic realities meet – they just might create something as poignant, congruent, beautiful and honest as “ a little weird” the latest recording effort from Lnz Kayd and Chris Newton’s project -a Melodic Daydream.
Kayd and Newton have been on this writer’s, and a host of front range music tastemakers’ radar screens for several years now. A simple listen to LnZ’s voice will tell you why. An appreciative ear for Newton’s guitar craft and arrangement skill will add the necessary exclamation point. News of some charting success, work with a prominent producer offering pro bono help, or an artist development deal- I thought had simply eluded me. But, it simply didn’t happen. Predictably, a few curmudgeons in the business lined up and offered to tell them why. I can hear some frustration in Newton’s voice as he patiently answers my questions, but I appreciate and admire the confidence he has held onto in the face of the adversity. Kayd, meanwhile, seemingly saves it all for the music. She has the still waters look, but sings and paddles like there is something altogether different going on inside.

If these challenges and high expectations ever crossed the line into some resentment or overwhelming disappointment, it seems the duo has come to terms with it now and helped LnZ channeled it into song’s like “When do you give up?” I would challenge any songwriter to manufacture a fictional image of such a question in the studio and have it pack the punch this track does. Knowing that the band has pieced together sessions for this album over a couple years by negotiating odd and un-booked studio block fragments was the band living out the reply. Harsh economics, raising their son Jaxon, finding stray session musicians to add to the arrangement in their spare time, were among the constant caveats struggling to be stamped as reasons why the project should be a debacle. I know when a few of us might have given up.

Enter the music. Art in its pure state is about transcendence and transformation. What is most evident in this recording: a Melodic Daydream has bonds and a resource of spirit deeper than the task of recording music, which allows them to emerge from melancholy and celebrate what they wake up to each day. Listen to the track “Shine” and you too will want to watch your loved one fall asleep that nite, and the rest of life evaporate into “just stuff that is going on”.



Hear Kayd’s alter ego and Newtons’s darker half step minors in “Disposable” and you will realized perhaps it is this same unconditional and enduring light that kills a dusty skeleton or two.

So, as I sit and listen to “a little weird” for the umpteenth time and appreciate its effortless visits to Motown, R&B, and Americana I am struck that most bands could not have made this album during this time. Fortunately, a Melodic Daydream is not most bands. They wrote it for one another, out of necessity – but its message of survival and celebration- could not have possibly been more directed at you and me.