Rubblebucket’s Kalmia Traver and Alex Toth met as jazz students at the University of Vermont in the 2000s, fell in love and formed a band, which soon found a modicum of success due to the fun sounds they shaped out of musical clay. They’re one part indie pop, one part art rock, with dashes of psychedelia, disco and dance mixed in, and remind me at times of Blondie circa the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Midway through last decade, however, the love Traver and Toth shared went belly-up.
Though their romance didn’t last, they’ve maintained their musical partnership. Sun Machine—as danceable a breakup album ever released—sashayed through earbuds in 2018, while Earth Worship won plaudits. Overcoming their communal heartbreak wasn’t easy, however; the press release explains they stuck together with help from “mediators, hypnotherapists, psycho-therapists, life coaches, business coaches, recovery groups, guided hallucinogens….”
Year of the Banana revisits the year things unpeeled, 2015. On the surface, it’s upbeat fun that’s sure to spur fans to shake their booties on the dance floor one moment and daze into the night the next. Sick beats couple with thick grooves, heady horns and seductive synths, while Traver’s vocals percolate throughout. “Rattlesnake,” released as a single a few months back, is a good example; and, as with the other tracks, once one listens to the lyrics, one realizes it’s deeper than, at first listen, it appears: “I don’t want to analyze you/But I see you’re stuck in a cage….”
“Go All the Way With Me” is another catchy tune that delves into deep waters.
Much of that depth comes from how the lyrics came to be: They’re adapted from poems Traver wrote in 2015. “Moving Without Touching” expounds on the distance that developed between them while maintaining an upbeat veneer, while “The Sorrow That Comes With Loving You” conjures a sad epiphany while embracing a mid-tempo Motown vibe.
A long, long time ago, on American Bandstand, the weekly Rate-a-Record segment sometimes found a teenager summing up a song with, “It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it.” The same’s true here, but Year of the Banana will also spur those listeners who pay attention to lyrics to think. The nine tracks are sure to placate fans, in other words—and, hopefully, win over new converts.
The Old Grey Cat 