CAPITAL

Wow. Cannot believe I missed this one. I've been on the search basically for catchy bands that are just not doing 4/4 and 3/4 timing all the time. Good NightOwl quenches this particular musical thirst I have acquired in different ways on most of the recent releases. Now, to be frank, I don't really have any friends that have this need. Most of my friends seem to try to keep their experimental music tastes separate from their pop tastes, and lets face it: pop rarely has included courageously odd time signatures since maybe Yes was on the radio.

Daniel Cupps, the singular force behind Good NightOwl, seems to have this same thirst. Not to be insulting, but the low amount of following behind Cupps suggests that he loves what he is doing so much that he does not care who is listening. He must be doing this with pure intrinsic passion, which I respect with high degree. With this in mind, it is completely baffling Cupps doesnt have at least SOMEWHAT of a larger following. But the production quality admittedly suggests a lack of budget. Nothing thusfar has sounded "radio friendly" (not that it's hugley important in the current era of internet music) but Cupps does not hide from this. An exchange with Cupps in Instagram DMs suggests he is living a starving artists life:

"Sun 1:11 PM

You sent Yes. but who is mixing it? Surely at least someone else is helping, no? I see on your bandcamp that the Good NightOwl project is meant to "see an artist grow over time with barely any budget. Some of it is meant to be funny, some it is meant to be serious, but if you think its all funny then it was all meant to be funny" but then I also see you're a collaborator of Tim Heidecker on occasion, so I wonder what is real and what is fake with you, as he has been known to be loose with reality in the past for giggles lol.

Tue 11:18 AM Dan Cupps Thaaaank youuuuu for your message. Good NightOwl is where I get out my experimental musical interests with some good old fashioned "genre play" I don't put a crazy amount of work into the costly plug-in subscription things because I'm super super poor, and I have intense ADHD. Of which a huge feature is me basically on a strange quest for stimuli that gives me dopamine 24/7. So if you're zeroing in on the less-than-pro-mix then you've just noticed that haven't looked up tutorials on how to do anything right cause im just pushing forward with creativity and a lustful zest for life lol. If you like what you hear its your problem. Sorry lol I'm sort of kidding. But not really."

AND THEN HE NEVER SAID ANYTHING ELSE and I really wasn't sure what to say, he seemed a bit too eccentric for my comfort levels haha. One day I will message him for a full interview once he has another album coming tho, to focus the convo more.

This album "Capital" has all the elements I want from composition: catchyness, activeness, odd time signatures that aren't so nauseatingly random, melodic sensibiity that has fusion elements but not so jazzy it sounds like elevator music, and good vocals that arent trying too hard to go outside the needs of the song. Even one track (Royal Fortunes) has a fun proggy Symphony X vibe (with some sort of shameless nod to the Home Alone soundtrack melody) This to me is a good encapsulation of just how wacky this album is. The extreme right wing guys will think this is anti-capitalism, but I see it as more of an exploration of "capital" as a concept. Nonetheless my take that I wanted to use this review as an excuse to get out is that this Good NightOwl album is like basically if Ween made an album that explored modern prog metal and mathrock from the perspective of a youtube-era indy bedroom popstar. What more can I say? Five starts for this masterpiece!