Masterful

Album: New Pagan Love Song
By Sylvie Simmons

Similarly undervalued – if young and from New York – Brill writes masterful songs , singing them (as I recently saw him do live, solo, with acoustic guitar) with an understated beauty a la Elliott Smith or E of eels. On his third full album, he plays with sound and production in an un-Americana way, using electro-percussion, piano and grooves, but the songs are no less good
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One of the most sophisticated, yet subtle, indie songwriters around.

Album: New Pagan Love Song
Issue No. 898

For a guy that lives in New York City, singer-songwriter Paul Brill makes music in refreshing contrast to the NYC grit, paranoia and garage rock hype
. “Weekday Bender,” for instance, has a carefree west coast vibe, its twinkling Fender Rhodes piano invoking a drive along the coast with the top down while Brill’s layered harmonies tip you off to time spent in California with his former band, SF Envelope. The more people hear Brill songs, the more he’ll be referred to as one of the most sophisticated, yet subtle, indie songwriters around.

ATTN: Fans of Ron Sexsmith, Sparklehorse, John Vanderslice
KEY TRACKS: “Weekday Bender,” Everything I Believe In, ” “Desert Song”

Singer-Songwriter Melds Folk And Electronics On New Record
Album: Electricana
By David Chiu

Paul Brill’s defining moment did not occur with a guitar in his hand. Instead, in the wake of his San Francisco band SF Envelope’s breakup, he found himself in his native New York, working at an East Harlem middle school for at-risk kids. “I was really burnt-out on playing music, so I ended up doing development work, cooking lunches and teaching,” says the soft-spoken singer-songwriter. “It was a transformative time for me
. I became interested in social justice and equity for children of color. And after a year working there, the inspiration returned to keep going with my music.”

Thoughtful and arresting… Brill’s defining moment.

The time away also gave Brill a chance to digest new sounds, as evident by his latest album New Pagan Love Song , which blends electronic textures with a folk-rock sound. He dubs it “electricana” — half electronica, half acoustic Americana. “I was
listening to a ton of electronic music,” he explains. “I really had a strong desire to completely reinterpret what I was doing. With this album, I did most of it myself with all the electronic gear at home.”

Of the new songs — sung in Brill’s gentle, heartfelt voice — his favorite is “Powerlines.” “I was really struggling. I wrote that as a folky, singer-songwriter thing, and I didn’t want to do any songs like that on the record. So I decided to throw away the guitar and go for the loops.”

Brill’s songs are melancholic anthems for the weary and down-and-out. He singles out the title track as the closest to anything upbeat. “It was the starting point for the record,” he says. “Images of late fall, an Indian-summer kind of vibe.” Although he’s now focused on music, Brill — who plays a string of California dates starting November 30th — still volunteers his time in East Harlem as a tutor, even putting in the occasional middle-school performance. “I did some shows with my band, and the kids came and sang and danced with me onstage,” he says. “They knew the songs! It was amazing.”

FIRST TAKE // Music
Album: “New Pagan Love Song”
By Stephanie Davis

On his third album, Paul Brill stuffs in so many electronic and organic sounds – xylophone, strings instruments, cut-up beats – it’s surprising he has room for lyrics. And while the music is engrossing, it’s his sly, pretty voice and acidic take on life – that sucks you in
. Cuts like “Weekday Bender” and “The Troubled Life of Herschel Grimes” are catchy enough to make popping pills and slapping people around sound like jolly undertakings,

…could have been the soundtrack to a lost Wes Anderson film.

but Brill can also fall convincingly into a ballad like “Everything I Believe in,” which is slinkier and closer to a soppy Coldplay sound. Zooming in on life’s ironies and the futility of relationships, Pagan sounds like it could have been the soundtrack to a lost Wes Anderson film.

Album: New Pagan Love Song
By Sam Ubl

Engaging piano pop balladry is a commodity rendered rare through excess. Considering the morass of feckless singer/songwriters, quality artists are like exotic treasures and their presence has been so marginalized that fans often lack the know-how to separate the grist from the mill. Some artists thrive on winsome personalities, cunningly distracting listeners from the music with their stylistic excess. They stand out like TV antennae in an electric storm, inviting critical rejection and the inevitable backlash of the fickle scenesters who often comprise their fanbase.

A demure opus that serves as a testament to the enduring potency of classical pop songwriting… virulently catchy…

But if the Ben Kwellers of the genre take the easy route to notoriety in an overpopulated field, where does that leave the Paul Brills? Brill is a harmless bloke– too good to be dragged down by his loudmouth peers and too modest to do anything about it. New Pagan Love Song is the New York-native’s third fulllength effort, but to most listeners it will serve as his introduction
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Coy artists such as Brill often suffer from the attention-grabbing exploits of their lesser contemporaries. But then, that’s their choice. As a member of the San Francisco-based Envelope, he endured the tension of a major-label bidding war, which wore on the band and ultimately led to their dissolution. In the years since, he’s helmed a formidable if not yet widely recognized solo career. For New Pagan Love Song, Brill also took the roles of producer and engineer, affording himself increased creative freedom. The result is a demure opus that serves as a testament to the enduring potency of classical pop songwriting. The album is like a montage of matchbook paintings, full of small treasures that by blinking you may risk missing.

The album shows a consistent affinity for time-tested techniques, but Brill isn’t afraid to capitalize on the expanded palette afforded by modern technology, dipping in electronic affectations that allow his abundant creativity to flourish. The liner notes even boast a “glitch guru,” Michael McKnight, who doubtless played a key role in making the stuttered beats. On the virulently-catchy “Comeback Kid”, a Yankee Hotel Foxtrot -style blend of electro-acoustic kitchen sink percussion pilots a bucolic array of instruments that includes banjo and pedal steel, while the saucy “Lay Down Your Weary Head” smacks of Portishead with its shuffling downtempo drumbeat and snappy upright bass groove.

Brill’s sound owes to a diverse set of forebears, but the composite typically falls somewhere between Elliott Smith and Grandaddy– influences he flaunts loudly on “Everything I Believe In”.

There, Brill sounds a lot like Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle, delivers a wrenching vocal performance that he drapes gently and plaintively over a glitchy piano-based waltz. Hardly overwhelmed by its digital apparel, the song thrives on the sort of classical restraint that lent Smith’s songs timelessness. On “Weekday Bender” there are strains of Brendan Benson or Fountains of Wayne, while tracks like “Daylight Scars” and “Desert Song” reveal Brill’s fondness for electro-pop architects such as Lali Puna and Juana Molina.

New Pagan Love Song also carries a loose story line, tracing a confused, presumably amnesiac character through several episodes. For the most part, Brill’s storytelling is simplistic, and it offers enough ambiguity to foster multiple interpretations. But while understated to the point of being almost inconsequential, the lyrical content only impedes Brill’s defiantly traditionalist vibe. And as a result, New Pagan Love Song is a quiet accomplishment but an accomplishment nonetheless.