Two years on from the release of their long-in-the-making (but highly-worth-the-wait) eponymous debut album, Corvair are back with their follow-up, Bound to Be. “Shady Town” is a blissfully melancholy slice of jangly indie-pop that builds on the dedication, experience, and passion that the Portland-based husband and wife duo of Heather Larimer and Brian Naubert have amassed playing in various other bands for the past two decades. But it’s when they write and play together that they really shine.
The pandemic opened the door to them to do that for the first time, and now, with drummer Mike Musburger in tow, they’re truly honing their craft on this album. Inspired by the gray skies of Portland (and, well, the whole surrounding area), “Shady Town” is the record’s second single, and serves as both a tribute to their home and a rousing, much-needed dose of escapist dreaming. Its video takes you on a virtual road trip via both old-fashioned photos and projections of driving footage that engulf and surround the pair.
Talking about the relentless gloom that served as inspiration for “Shady Town”’s lyrics, Larimer says: “The Pacific Northwest brings you to your knees right about February, when you haven’t seen dry streets or sunlight for months. We wrote ‘Shady Town’ deep in the winter when we were losing our minds and fantasizing about escaping. We’ve been on some major cross-country drives in our lives, so we just created a Dada collage of odd road trip details against a sleazy guitar riff.”
“We wanted it to be very sticky,” adds Naubert. “and were thinking about songs like ‘Cannonball’ or even Gary Glitter. Something that might get played at a basketball game. We wrote the song in snippets in different settings and then stole the drumbeat from a song my 9th grade band had written about a rodeo, weirdly, and then we inserted some Doppler effects for the feeling of velocity. So the song has that unrooted, speedy feeling of being on a road trip with strange people.”
Check out the video below, and stream the track right here.
