Ivy
Traces of You
BAR/NONE
It’s an extremely rare occurrence when an album makes you choke up before you even drop the needle. But that’s the case with Ivy’s Traces of You, which carries the distinction of being the indie-pop band’s first album in 14 years—a distinction, sadly, in the truest and deepest sense that’s eclipsed by memories of band member Adam Schlesinger, one of the first well-known cultural figures to die from COVID shortly after the pandemic hit. The universally beloved musician was better known as the frontman of Fountains of Wayne and the stockpile of awards the profusely prolific producer/writer amassed for his work in the TV and film industry: three Emmys, one GRAMMY, and an ASCAP Pop Music Award; to boot, he notched Oscar, Tony, and Golden Globe nominations.
Schlesinger’s presence is inevitably felt from start to finish on Traces of You, as the album consists of 10 songs he made with his bandmates Andy Chase and Dominique Durand from 1995 to 2012—essentially the duration of their career. Chase and Durand reunited to complete the compositions along with backing keyboardist and guitarist Bruce Driscoll, who played a pivotal role on Traces of You with his writing, mixing, production, and engineering contributions (additional players included guitarist Jody Porter and percussionist Brian Young from Fountains of Wayne). What makes Traces of You a unique album by a band that reunited after losing a core member is that Ivy didn’t deliver a collection of morbid or downcast songs revolving around his death. To the contrary, all the tunes on Traces hearken back to the airy, whimsical spirit that made them an effervescent delight of a band at a time when it was hip to be hopeless.
The magic of Ivy is that they underscored the difference between the practice of carefreeness as an act of love for life versus resignation, the blood brother of disconnection, isolation, and, ultimately, misery. “Sometimes I just embrace the unknown,” Durand professes on “The Great Unknown,” “Sometimes I feel the weight of the world / Sometimes I find myself at your door / Sometimes I find my face on your floor.” What an elegant way of communicating that most of us are a hot mess struggling to merely get through—much less find meaning in—the insanity of human existence on a daily basis. And, because Durand delivers those lyrics in her trademark calm, whispery voice, she can state a universal truth without causing listeners’ heart rates to accelerate.
Other songs are even more pacifying, like opener “Midnight Hour,” which sees Durand keeping almost comically cool in the face of adversity: “Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo… when it gets too much.” Ivy essentially turn the definition of empathy into song form on “Fragile People,” with Durand commenting: “It’s a fact We’re made of glass / To err is human… It gets so dark / When you need a light on… We’re all fragile people… try to be strong, try to hold on.” All the while, Chase, Schlesinger, Driscoll, and company lay down a cozy air mattress of light electronic instrumentation that provides the listener with a setting perfectly suited to absorb and appreciate the truths about which Durand muses.
What Ivy has done with Traces of You is capture the essence of life, gently, in words and music that serve to caress instead of flaunt a conviction to which no one can seriously abide. Those were different times, when Ivy wrote at least the seeds for these songs, but they bring comfort to the loss of Schlesinger in a way that only art can.
