Civilized Creature returns with Requited, another offering of symmetrical melodies in asymmetrical beats. On this eighth LP as Civilized Creature, Ryan Lane—the wizard behind the curtain—seems in his element yet again after a string of consistent records, as poised and committed as I’ve ever heard him.
Similar Not Same Old
On one hand, Requited sounds like what we’ve come to expect from Civilized Creature—extremely competent and meticulously intentional downtempo indietronica with enough spunk and funk to distinguish it from its coffeehouse peers (e.g., Bonobo, Bibio, Four Tet, or Photay). Reassuringly, damped electric guitars plucking transient, antiphonal melodies still show up throughout the record. But, even from the beginning, this staple of the Civilized Creature sound feels more free, less burdened. The stutter beat in track one, “When I Call,” teases the pocket almost to total frustration. But it works exactly as it needs to, and it knows it. It evokes the exact emotional tension Lane sings about. Lane has dressed his production in even more quirk, and yet somehow it seems even more willing to dance in public.
This subtle development in production compliments but does not compare to the biggest distinguishing feature in Requited, which appears in Lane’s singing voice: there’s simply more of it. You get hints in previous albums that the man can sing, but he regularly hides this behind effects or simply omits centering or prolonging sung parts, relying instead on instrumentals and spoken word to give him voice. “Even when my cover’s blown,” he says on the first track. It is. And it’s what all of us suspected: the man has pipes. Lane puts his full weight on his vocals by track eight, (“Through It All”), and his singing voice carries the whole song. Lane apparently found greater confidence and self-acceptance during a year (and counting) where most of us have felt singularly deflated. Which is strange, isn’t it? As I listened through the first time, I wondered how that worked.
A rare Civilized Creature headshot that isn’t a coyote head.
Introverts in Quarantine
From my interactions with Lane, he strikes me as a well-adjusted introvert with extremely sensitive emotional responses. Don’t you wonder like I do about how artists like this (and there are quite a number) have fared during this pandemic? They’re still producing like crazy. Maybe even at a higher rate. But it’s hard for me to listen to anything right now without thinking, “Nothing is normal.” I can’t help but see all this art coming out now and wonder what head and heart space the artists must have been in while they were making it.
This is what ended up making sense to me: In quarantine behind our masks, the extroverts had to learn to be alone, momentarily less validated. And some of them have handled it better than others. But it seems the introverts fared better than most under this overcast pandemic season. They already had some capacity to be alone. But now they can shed their sourceless guilt, allowed for once not to interrogate their own motives for preferring quietness and solitude. In the world of quarantine, deer could cross the interstate without even being seen by, much less crushed under, speeding headlights. So they left hiding for a time. The deer. And maybe the introverts. Perhaps they feel like we’ve grown quiet enough to hear them, and they’re speaking up. And, judging from Requited, that’s great news for art.
**********************
You can find Requited on Bandcamp, Spotify, SoundCloud, Amazon Music, Apple Music, or wherever else you listen.
You can connect to Civilized Creature on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.