El Radio

El Radio is Chris Garneau's sophomore effort to his acclaimed debut album Music for Tourists. Music for Tourists received accolades from Time Out New York, Stereogum and NPR (to name a few).

There is a poignant melancholy and bold sincerity that permeates all of Garneau's music, but those qualities are augmented by a playfulness in his melodies and arrangements. You can hear examples of this in the sublime retro-pop of "Fireflies," the album's incredibly catchy standout first single "No More Pirates," and the deceptively upbeat and Baroque-styled "Dirty Night Clowns" (a song inspired by a true life tale of a child molesting dwarf who'd sneak into homes in the dark of night dressed as a clown). Garneau's extensive cast of characters unavoidably comment on the social and political forces that pull us unpredictably through time while rollicking to the rhythms of an organ grinder.

Countering these plays on life, the ever literal "Hands on the Radio" expresses the nostalgia, empathy and embrace for Juarez, Mexico - a border city fraught with the great despair of its infamy, the unsolved murders of hundreds of women, while remaining a rapidly growing metropolis filled with hope. And "Hometown Girls" is anthem to an American archetype, in which Garneau watches tumbleweeds blow over the lives of girls whom he wishes we loved more.

This volley of the violent and the whimsical, the sweet and the sinister, the carnival and the funeral, plays throughout El Radio.