by Mykhailo Vil’yamson
If there was one place that I could live, it would be California. But for reasons manifold, it’ll never happen. Second best is travelling there, which I had the chance to do earlier this spring – after saving for years – and along my way down the coast I stopped in a little place called Summerland: population 1300-ish. There’s a song by the same name from the mid-’90s by Everclear where frontperson Art Alexakis sings: “Just a name on the map / Sounds like heaven to me.” And stopping at the beach was just like that: a dream. But it was an illusion; an ephemeral fantasy. Because after my few days on the coast, it was back to landlocked Manitoba with only a one-minute video of the surf as a souvenir.
It reminds me of Jamboree’s latest full-length release – also sharing the title Summerland. However, instead of that song off the certified platinum Sparkle and Fade or that alluded-to small town in the Golden State, apparently the primary inspiration for these ten tracks is a 16-story apartment complex in Winnipeg: the one with a greenhouse atrium in between, allowing for non-native tropical plants to grow year-round (i.e., providing some sort of artificial escape for residents from the white hell of winter). Did Alex Braun, Nick Lavich or Sky Parenteau themselves frequent the cement-walled courtyard of 77 University Crescent? Unknown. But like this simulated paradise, what the album itself hints at is that one can never really escape the distress of living. One might have a veneer of contentment – as with the first two songs, “Late Summer” and “Systems” – but much of existence is a trying and failing to experience everything in its right place.
Summerland is indie rock par excellence, with a good balance of quiet-loud dynamism, multiple layers of guitars, endearingly wavering vocals, and lots of distorted undertones. Full of introspection, “You Watched Me Play Hockey” and “Punk Mentality” allude to deep-seated feelings of lack or missing something that would imaginably bring satisfaction. The singing on “Rubber Ducks” and “Summerland, MB” is almost Nic Dyson-esque sonically and thematically. “Wonder Bread” does actually have some Everclear vibes, with the highlight for me being Braun yelling “feed the ducks” near the song’s end. Then there’s the 48-second dreamy interlude “Fruit Flies,” the alt-folk ballad “Dancing in the Fire,” and the album’s conclusion: a reflective instrumental postlude called “Summerland Sound.” In the band’s own words, “Summerland conjures its own endless summer that’s always about to fall apart,” and they definitely succeed in creating such a soundscape.
Find the latest album by Jamboree on Bandcamp – released June 28th of this year – alongside their three other LPs and six EPs that have been released since 2018. They’ve been busy, and my guess is that it won’t be long before we hear from them again.