Alright, Good’s debut LP, Yard Sale, is out now on The Butter. It’s really fucking good. Listen HERE.

• All songs by Brendan Raimann.

• Recorded and Mixed by Brendan Raimann.

• Mastered by ReleaseMaster.

• Brendan Raimann — Vocals, Guitar, Keys, Bass, Drums, Pots, Pans

• Shane Consalvo — Piano (4,11)

• Brett Pezza — Guitar (4,8,11)

• Artwork by Ryan Israel.

LINER NOTES

“I think I hate the floor.”

I leave it so cluttered I can barely see it.

It’s always flooded with clothes, books, records, strings, ropes, shoes, carabiners, bottles, cans, wrappers, bags, letters, bills, bowls, bugs (probably), a guitar or two.

I hate it.

“It knows that I’m unsure.”

Not that I’d ever say so.

Not in so few words.

It took Brendan’s keen (if unassuming) voice — delivered over Zoom as a voice memo (almost exactly a year ago) — to lay it out.

Twenty-three years young and doing pretty ok, he crystallized a notion felt but never shook.  

“I love everything that you’ve done, doesn’t really change, no it doesn’t change anything.”

Our apartment spun its wheels dutifully: writing, mixing, tweaking, scrapping. Iteration on iteration.

For me, it bred frustration.

“Doesn’t change anything at all.”

For him, it refined early demos, sharpened fragments to a point.

Soundscapes bloomed, grew new layers at a rapid clip. They recontextualized a resignation to “hate the floor,” blurred its bitter core in melody, multicolored subtext well-woven through guitar, synth, bass — plainspoken lyric against dry sonic wit.

Before long, new sentiments took hold.

“I’ve been in a better mood.”

Demos found footing, a voice, merged with each other into a unified project.

“Now I know what it means to shake it off.”

It locked into focus. Eyes to “where it goes.”

“Ebb and flow, breath it out and take it in.”

It grew.

I watched closely.

Yard Sale reached its climax at the crux of “Change.”

Pitched vocals, pulsing beats on par with pop’s most idiosyncratic, “Change” bristled with a pioneering confidence.

It needed an outro to match.

Brendan set to work, beginning in the kitchen.

First pots, then pans, then wooden spoons: an entire afternoon in search of clang.

It looked like mania — more than slightly insane.

I’m remiss to say I was a bit smug.

Until he showed me where it all went.

“Change me now me now me now me now …” faded, the horns came in stride. Bass locked in just behind the beat: a polyrhythmic subtext. Pots and pans followed, plugging the gaps, filling the space.

There was still mania — in the core of the thing — but it stood at the edge of breakup, a suspended sliver of chaos in lockstep with the groove.

It was a space to “see things through.”

From here, Brendan rolled and glitched, blending benchmark influences  — Alex G, Caamp, RKS — into a sound all his own.

He traversed genre with ease, lilting “Big Green Field’s” slowcore into “Burn’s” caffeinated punk into “Breakaway’s” anthemic churn into the lucid simplicity of “Fall.”

“Maybe it’s too much.”

I paused, took it in.

“I’ve been thinking you’ve been far too kind.”

Perhaps.

“Never harping on the old shit. Too numb to get a good grip.”

Ok, chill. But the fact remains.

“I can’t hold back.”

And maybe it’s okay if I’m off track.

“You know what I am. You felt it, you felt it.”

And maybe it’s okay to fall.

“I’ve been thinking that’s it’s not so bad.”

Not at all.

“Might’ve been the best I ever had.”

—

“Too much for me to take.”