Lullatone ~ Falling for Autumn

Smack-dab in the middle of the season’s frightening Halloween albums, we find this reminder that fall has more than one mood.  Yes, it can be scary when the leaves begin to fall and the monsters come out.  And yes, the shadow of that deserted house may indeed be growing.  But those monsters might be cute.  And the shadow might just want to play.  Falling for Autumn is music for “discovering an impressive collection of acorns, switching from iced coffee to hot coffee, and riding bikes when it is way too windy.”  These tracks are warm enough to conquer drafts and conjure friendly ghosts.  The summer may have ended, but new joys await: candy corn, brilliant leaves, spangled skies.

Lullatone‘s strummable Summer Songs EP brought a smile to the face and a lilt to the step, and Falling for Autumn does the very same thing.  That step might even work its way into a song, as it does on “just walking around”.  Every aspect is ebullient, from Grace Lee’s cover art to the beguiling titles to the fact that a dozen friends contributed whistling, singing, and “telling us which songs are good or not”.  They are all good, Shawn and Yoshimi!  Or one might say they are “fall good”, reflecting the name of the album – so much better than Autumning for Fall (clunky!).  Better still is the word that winter and spring EPs will follow.  We’re in for the long haul: a year of happy tunes.  Who could argue with that?

While Summer Songs jumped from genre to genre like a happy child with brand new toys, Falling for Autumn stays in the same range throughout, and is more consistent as a result.  This time around, it is very hard to choose highlights.  It would be like choosing between Shawn, who makes breakfast, and Yoshimi, who makes lunch and dinner.  I like breakfast better than any meal, but I’m not sure I like breakfast more than lunch and dinner.  I think perhaps they are equal!  I just wish I had this EP on a little plastic record that I could cut from the back of a cereal box and play on a portable plastic record player, over and over, until the needle hit cardboard and I had to beg my mom to buy another box of cereal.  But okay, for now only, and for completely arbitrary reasons, I will choose “here comes the sweater weather” (because I like the handclaps and I have a cupboard of sweaters) and “adventure music for migrating birds” (because it contains the sound of a cold rain that leads to winter, and I love winter, and in winter there will be another Lullatone EP).  And guess what!  Two people on Bandcamp like the same songs!  What a happy world this is!  (Richard Allen)

Available here