Melina Mae
Jay Som’s Melina Duterte live at DC9; photographed by Taryn Alper.
Having won over the entire world with releases like Turn Into, Everybody Works & various singles; Jay Som’s Melina Duterte presents us with a listen to “time off work” recorded under her solo handle of Melina Mae. The Oakland based artist returns to recent thematic topics that surround the subject of employment & the feelings & thoughts that surround these necessary constructs that have tendencies to consume the bulk of our lives. Created with that stylized sleepy guitar & dreamy atmospheric textures; Melina makes music for our trying times that operates with honesty & observations that emerge from the depths of our reflective & collective unconscious.
The feeling of melancholy & the malaise of overworked exhaustion that comes with the constant, daily grind is illustrated by Melina through the a wealth of feeling that utilizes all available audio frequencies. From the lo-fi to the hi-fi sections, the scope of Duterte’s ever-expansive & still expanding avenues & altitudes of sound combine both her DIY practices that are combined with all the latest acquired advanced tools & tricks of the pop trade. On “time off work”, Melina molds together a collective sigh of overwhelmed sentiments that measures the weight of one’s labors with the ephemeral idolatry that arrives with a leisurely day spent away from the demands of any sort of job. From the cornucopia of keys to the fuzzy baroque strings, brass & muddy samples; Melina makes music for our time, ballads for the overworked & underpaid. Anthems for both the gainfully employed & dejected folks that have all but given up perusing through the classified sections in hopes to find a potential purpose (or at least something resembling an occupation).
