If we’re a bit a partial when it comes to Bret Tobias, then so be it. Through his early-aughts tenure with criminally short-shrifted power-pop anti-idols Bigger Lovers to his consistently excellent—if sporadic—solo work in more recent years, the guy has always had a way with a hook. He also gets bonus points as a longtime Philadelphia resident. (And we’re homers through and through.)
Here’s what Tobias had to say about his new self-released EP, Tuneless Blues, which, by the way, will never be mistaken for blues and is far from tuneless.
“It’s a pretty varied bunch of songs, both stylistically and sonically. I worked with a couple different mixers—first Kevin Wesley Williams, then Brian McTear and Amy Morrissey. Kevin mixed ‘It Begins With A Lean’ and ‘Happiness Writes White,’ and his remit was to make them sound like a major-label alt record from 1987, which he nailed. Then, as I was getting the other tracks together, a friend of mine shared his experiments with AI, which were astonishing and frighteningly eye-opening. Once I realized the power of the readily available AI tools I was, like, ‘Oh, shit. Better lean into my humanity and make these other tracks as organic and warts-and-all as possible.’ That’s where Brian and Amy came in. I’ve known them for decades, and they’re really comfortable working with tracks in their natural state … musica verité, if that’s a thing. Two very different approaches, both of which I love and which I think can coexist.”
—Hobart Rowland
1) “Sepviva Shuffle”
“A rollicking number about a guy who blows up his life and retreats to a hip neighborhood where he no longer belongs. A native Fishtowner noted that I mispronounce ‘Sepviva,’ which I was initially mortified about. But on second thought, this character is a tourist, so it’s a gaffe that feels appropriate.”
2) “It Begins with A Lean”
“This was meant to be a sympathetic look at the sad cunts drawn to demagoguery. It was written in the runup to the 2024 election as a cautionary tale, before it was a lock that every base instinct of our shitbag-in-chief would become policy. Seems so quaint now.”
3) “Tuff Sleddin’”
“It’s OK to acknowledge challenges that are less than monumental, ya know?”
4) “Happiness Writes White”
“The sound of a person coming out of a prolonged spell of terminal negativity and struggling to reacquaint himself with positive feelings. And the guitar filigree at the end? That’s Marty Wilson-Piper, which still blows my damn mind.”
5) “Undo Undo Undo”
“This is from the perspective of a woman with really humble aspirations who takes up with a guy who reveals himself to be violently insecure. I recognized it as a contemporary Tess Of The d’Urbervilles situation, so I added a bridge that nicks from a passage in that novel.”
