Words by Jason Lee
Band photos by Nicole Schlaeppi
Not since Stephen Malkmus left “Harness Your Hopes” off Pavement’s Brighten The Corners LP in 1997 thus relegating the song to b-side obscurity (“show me a word that rhymes with Pavement / and I won’t kill your parents / and roast them on a spit”) until a couple decades later when it mysteriously blew the f— up on streaming going on to become the band’s most popular track and the Stockton slackers didn’t have to do a thing to make it happen (appropriate!) has a track of such elevated quality as “Smell the Smoke” been left off the album it was originally intended for, namely, in this case, Wake of Modern Life (see our writeup on the record and interview with the band here!) by Bay Area-based electronically enhanced psych-rock-meets-avant-pop sonic alchemists Dear Banshee but at least in this instance we won’t have to wait decades for the hidden gem to receive its due…
…cuz the band officially released the WoML outtake/b-side in waiting on New Year’s Day 2024 and after nearly a month it’s still one of our fave tracks of the year thus far (even if it’s from last year technically) and will be many others’ too once the word amply get out cuz for one thing it’s got that whole “too elemental to feel wedded to any specific time or place” thing going for it—a stripped down piano-and-vocals elegy with a wash of ambient synth towards the end that’s too hauntingly beautiful and stately in the face of sorrow to be as much of a downer as it should be…
…and really if so inclined you could make a case for it being the most low-key anxiously erotic b-side since Air’s “The Way You Look Tonight” or the most wistfully melancholic b-side since the Cure’s “2 Late”—which is largely down to the close-mic’ed, creaky old sepulchral-sounding piano (50-cent word alert!) with the audible room ambiance picking up every creak and groan of the keyboard instrument (like you can literally hear the tension hanging in the air) and even more so the sublime vocal harmonizing between James Lucas and Chelsea Wilde as they encourage us to “throw a match on the fire / implode, implode / bow your head to the ground / and speak to the dead” and then when at the end they ascend into angels-heard-on-high-while-high heavenly falsetto vocal range who could resist their invitation to light a match and watch it all burn down…
…which come to think of it hints at one other possible reason “Smell the Smoke” hits so intensely at our current juncture and that’s in how it’s dissociative calm-before-the-storm, air-of-ill-portent vibe overall sounds like a likely overture to the year to come (just 11 months to go!) assuming the smoke we’re all smelling leads to a full-on conflagration (back in ’97 Mr. Malkmus was singing about how “the freaks have stormed the White House” which just goes to show how prophetic lyrics can take a minute to come true) and hey if it’s only one conflagration that’s maybe not so bad (!) not that the fires aren’t already burning or as James puts it re: lyrical inspiration:
“This song was written during the invasion of Ukraine and the lyrics are still relevant now in light of recent events, which is why we feel compelled to share it today. There is never any justification for war. The people of Ukraine deserve to be free. The people of Palestine deserve to be free. We cannot allow fascist dictatorships to commit mass genocide on a group of people” and it’s a sad situation indeed when you write a song inspired by one horrific war that applies to another by the time it sees release…
…but release is what we’re all after (arguably!) after all and if you can’t find it in the most transcendent two-part harmonies this side of Mimi and Alan then we can’t do nuttin’ for ya man and just to add an extra layer of bittersweetness to the mix this may be the last time we get to hear sweet harmonies between Chelsea and James on record seeing as Chelsea recently made the difficult decision to move on from Dear Banshee in order to give more time to her main musical project Minor Birds so hey it’s not an entirely bad thing and maybe there’s more outtakes in the vaults but even if not Dear Banshee’s got a number of new members which is exciting and has portended good things in the past so maybe there’s reason to hope for
some good fortune after all…
“Smell the Smoke”
Recorded and mixed by Marshall Wieczorek
Mastered by Russell Arteaga