Mere months after the Lemon Twigs’ A Dream Is All We Know made it onto numerous year-end lists, the New York City duo’s elder half offers this “surprise” debut. But truth be told, Brian D’Addario recorded most of it with younger brother Michael anyway, making Till The Morning less a solo album and more a clearing house for the country-flavored material that didn’t mesh with the lush anthems of 2023’s ballad-heavy Everything Harmony or the overt power-pop time capsules of last year’s Dream. In fact, Michael co-produced, sang harmonies and even pitched in on co-lead vocals at times. How’s that for sibling sacrifice.
The album is also noteworthy for its two collaborations with Los Angeles-based poet Stephen Kalinich, famous for his longstanding ties to the Beach Boys. D’Addario offers his thoughts on those two tracks, along with nine others.
—Hobart Rowland
1) “Till The Morning”
“It’s a love song having to do with those fleeting moments when you grasp something real amidst all the noise and propaganda: ‘The night is pitch black until the morning.’ Maybe things need to completely collapse before they get better.”
2) “Song Of Everyone”
“This was the second song written with Stevie (Kalinich). I recorded this one by myself on 8-track cassette in my apartment.”
3) “Nothing On My Mind”
“Something I wrote after listening to the Carter Family’s recording of ‘Wildwood Flower’ for a while. I was hypnotized by Maybelle Carter’s melodic guitar playing, and the song grew out of experimenting with that style. It was easy to get into the mood of the song while playing that kind of guitar.”
4) “One Day I’m Coming Home”
“One of the more obvious country-influenced tunes on the record. What sounds like pedal steel was actually me playing slide guitar while Michael rode the faders on the recording console.”
5) “Only To Ease My Mind”
“This is probably the oldest song on the album in terms of when it was written. Michael sings with me on this one.”
6) “Flash In The Pan”
“I remember working for hours on this to get the slide guitars right. The ‘harpsichord’ for the baroque bridge was a piano recorded at half speed.”
7) “Company”
“A futuristic interpretation of 1920s Tin Pan Alley—maybe because it’s anticipating my own inevitable nostalgia for my younger years. Initially, I imagined strings and clarinets. Instead, I tried to get the same results using fuzz guitars and Moog synthesizer.”
8) “This Summer”
“This was done on a whim when Michael and I were visiting our friend Daryl Johns in L.A. We didn’t have anything to record, and we felt like putting something on his four-track. I came up with the melody and chords while Daryl was working on getting a good drum sound. He sat at the drums, and we all put the track down live with Michael on bass and me on guitar. Michael made up some words quickly, and we got on the same mic and got it down. Daryl thought we should put some country guitar on it. We tried for a while, but we ended up getting hungry and had some Italian food instead. I eventually took the tape back to New York, put the steel guitar and cellos on, and we had the song.”
9) “What You Are Is Beautiful”
“Recorded by Michael, this has more of a dry sound than we usually go for. Love Stevie’s words on this one.”
10) “Useless Tears”
“Born out of the paranoia that arises when you realize the social contract has been violated. The people who write the laws and the billionaires who create this ticking time bomb of inequality are elusive and safe. It’s innocent people who often bear the brunt of random acts of violence that may not have occurred if we lived in an equitable society where mental illness and poverty were more directly addressed. It’s sort of a real-life Halloween horror song.”
11) “Spirit Without A Home”
“This was written toward the end of losing my uncle. It was a slow decline from Alzheimer’s at an early age. It felt unjust that such a dynamic, charismatic guy should have to leave his body in such a poor state. It’s a tribute to him—trying to make something good out of a bad situation. Michael sings a nice harmony with me throughout the song, especially at the end.”
