Michael Hearst
Songs For Ice Cream Trucks
Label: Bar/None Records
We spent some time in New York City last week. Manhattan in August is sticky, stinky and surreptiously filthy. And while a shower is often the first thing in mind while walking down a busy midtown street, we’ll often be passed by people chowing down on giant ice cream cones, rocketpops or other goodies from the jubilant ice cream trucks who traverse the city, heartily shilling their goods to a society trained to open wallet and then mouths — despite our better judgment — when we hear the tinkle of the ice cream truck.
Back home in Minneapolis, our neighborhood’s ice cream man doesn’t drive the traditional panel truck with sliding window. Instead, he has turned an unmarked conversion van into a rolling cream machine. At first blush, a grown man driving a gray van slowly around a residential neighborhood trying to attract kids to try his candy doesn’t exactly sound kosher, but there’s one thing standing between creepy and crepes: the melodies blaring from a makeshift speaker awkwardly tied atop the luggage rack.
It’s the music that draws us to the ice cream man. It’s the music that’s his calling card. It’s the music that’s programmed into our subconscious to trigger that Pavlovian response.
With all that set-up, don’t let us forget to introduce you to Michael Hearst. A member of Brooklyn’s book-rock collective One Ring Zero, Hearst took some solo time to experiment with the call of the ice cream man.
His new album, Songs For Ice Cream Trucks, blends glockenspiel, accordion, calliope, chimes, bells and myriad other instruments with a gentle songwriting style reminiscent of Sufjan Stevens. Mostly instrumental, the sing-song tracks boast a wide array of style, time signature and inspiration.
This album’s appeal is hardly limited to children, but we gave it a whirl. Our one year-old really loves his Rockabye Baby CDs, so we gave this one a spin. It’s just as popular (not that he really has a choice, but not screaming is always a good sign).
We will say, this is a fantastic album, but listening through all 13 tracks three times in a row is almost enough to trigger us into a delusional Clockwork Orange killfest.
Wonder what flavor goes with that?
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