MUSIC

BY ALEX DE VORE alex@sfreporter.com

For Santa Fe music fans who pay attention to the bands and musicians who call our fair city home, it might not get more exciting than to learn a debut record from new act Hush Monster dropped suddenly just last week with literally no promotion beforehand.

Why, you ask, should you care so much? Simple: Hush Monster is a trio consisting of flamingo pink! songwriter Megan Maher and D Numbers/Ray Charles Ives members Brian Mayhall and Paul Feathericci.

Hush Monster is kind of like a local version of Traveling Wilburys in a way, which, yeah, is a bold statement, probably, but the record, dubbed Patience, is out now on Feathericci/ Mayhall’s label, Mesa Recordings, and is an excellent example of sounds from familiar musicians that hit upon touchstones with which we’ve become familiar—but that become a completely new sort of thing.

Take opening track “Fireflies,” wherein Maher’s soothing vocal work harmonizes with itself over layered percussive sounds and a calming bass line that sounds a bit like keys and synths. Those who know flamingo pink! know this voice, but it’s more expansive and rhythmically varied this time out. Maher elongates phrases and fits melodies into the overall song in unexpected ways. She also makes the lyrics feel applicable to anyone.

Three simple sentences that paint such a picture. Chills.

“Megan is an incredible musician, artist, songwriter, guitar player, but not a music producer,” Hush Monster’s Feathericci, a mainstay of the local DJ, live band and production scene, tells SFR, “so it started with Brian saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to use our skills as producers to make a record?’ And I said, ‘You know what would be cooler than that is to just start a band with Megan.’”

This was way back in 2015, Feathericci estimates, and early practices and writing sessions clicked immediately.

“We got together in Brian’s old house, and it was just bring some instruments, bring some percussion; Megan brought her guitar, a violin, and we just started taking turns making sounds,” he recalls. “Megan has this incredible way of...we’re messing with the computer, and she’s quietly sitting there with her phone, writing down lyrics and composing a vocal melody in her head. We put her in headphones to record, and it’s as if she’s been working on it for weeks—she just sings these words we’ve never heard, with a completely fleshed-out melody, and nails it on the first take.”

That song, Feathericci says, is “Slow With Me,” the first Hush Monster ever put together and a standout track on Patience.

The vocals shift and phase across multiple layers of beats and bass. Still, the multi-track voice harmonies remain front and center. This keeps our perspective locked on the words at play, and much like everything else Maher does on the album, they’re ideas we need to hear.

Things expand from those tracks into more sonically diverse areas throughout the record. It’s important to consider an album in the way a band intended, but having listened to Patience for days now, it’s interesting to know it works in any order. By the time you hit the eponymous midway point, for example, drums produced by local impresario Bill Palmer become more jaunty beneath phasing guitar licks and those sweet Maher melodies, but that doesn’t take away from the driving “Oooooooohs” on closer “Telescope.” This is the literal definition of the sum being greater than the parts.

That’s an interesting take from a guy whose other projects have been meticulously plotted-out. D Numbers songs play almost like math equations—which is excellent, and I’ve got no notes for the band. Hush Monster, however, feels more intuitive and natural, particularly on the track “Perfect Self,” a borderline dance jam that would fit right in as the soundtrack to your life. That one, like so many others, is best listened to while staring off into space, mulling. With so much going on musically and vocally, Patience practically demands all your focus.

“It’s a new entity, and it is so rewarding to get to make something completely new that’s not borrowing from past projects,” Feathericci notes. “There’s just this ultimate respect and delicate touch that we didn’t even discuss...an unspoken cautiousness to be delicate with the process and to be have a ‘yes, and’ attitude about it.”

You might have to wait a bit to catch Hush Monster live. These tracks are complicated and feature more instruments than you might think (horns!), though Feathericci says they might even throw together an expanded band. It’s definitely something they’d like to do, he says, it’ll just take time. For now, heed the record and have a little patience. You can stream Patience in full at mesarecordings.bandcamp.com

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