Brian Slattery Photo
Burnet.
Given that it was made sometime in the past six weeks or so, S.G. Carlson’s “Your Guess” sounds like an oasis, effortlessly breezy and peaceful. It doesn’t feel like escapism; it feels like solace. Same goes for Alex Burnet’s “Til I Stop Crying,” which speaks both of the ultimate impermanence of things, but their dependability until that time comes, whether it’s tears or the determination to keep going. Xavier Serrano’s chiming, pulsing guitar and bouncing melody balances the sting of his lyrics: “They say life is but a game we play,” he sings, “yet there are no winners at the end of the road.”
Carlson, Burnet, and Serrano are three of 10 artists on Waiting on a Sunrise, Vol. 3, the latest and last installment in the series of pandemic compilations Burnet gathered and released during the Covid-19 pandemic. Taken as a whole, the series captured the initial shock of sickness and shutdown, the adaptation to the new reality of life under quarantine, and, with the final volume, a sense of figuring out where to go from here.
“I think you can hear a natural calm. The other two strive for a calming vibe. This one is more at ease,” said Alex Burnet, who put out the first two volumes in May and June, respectively. As with the first two volumes, Burnet contacted the artists and gave then four weeks to create a track for the compilation. Sam Carlson at Sans Serif Recording mastered the album. (Burnet at last gave himself and Carlson slots on the final compilation.) Karli Hendrickson did graphic design. This time, proceeds from the album are going to the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, which “protects and defends the rights of Black transgender people,” as the organization writes in its mission statement.
In addition to ease, Waiting on a Sunrise’s third compilation even has traces of humor, starting with Little Wings’s “A Peanut,” in which the singer describes himself as being much like that favorite snack, even as he nods to today’s troubles. Bears’s “What’d You Wish For” struts along on a slow, luscious rhythm that lets the vocals float along the top.
With two previous compilations under his belt — and having decided that the third volume would be the last in the series — Burnet asked himself, “how far can I reach? Who can I ask?” So, in addition to the CT-based Liz Larson and Xavier Serrano, Burnet got Violent Mae’s first song since 2015’s Kid. . While that album rocked out, the band’s contribution to the compilation keeps it sparse with guitar and piano and Becky Kessler’s whispered voice. Likewise, Footings makes its bed with just a vocal and electric guitar.
“The last live performance I played was the Saturday before bars and restaurants closed, with Xavier at Cafe Nine, so that felt like a full circle,” Burnet said. He noted that many of the artists sent songs that sounded more like themselves, perhaps a testament to being able to reconnect with collaborators and assemble their equipment — something that some of the artists in the first volume couldn’t do. “I was caught off guard when everything came in electronic” for the first album, Burnet said with a laugh.
But the album isn’t all peaceful. Steve Hartlett’s “Lonelyphonyface” is downright danceable, which Sincera deploys the full sound of the band as though they were playing in a club that somehow, miraculously, escaped current events. Liz Larson’s “Side of History” snarls its way through a tearing down of America’s creation myth, a mirror of the voices in the streets calling for a historic reckoning with our country’s past.
Burnet announced at the release of volume 2 that this third volume would be the final album in the series, and a month later, he hasn’t changed his mind. “This is definitely the last one,” Burnet said. “I need things to have a beginning, a middle, and an end.” Also, by ending the series, “something new can happen,” he added.
After all, he has started a digital-only record label, involving dozens of artists already. “I want to put out music that’s really good that other people have slept on,” he said, including from “artists that write good material but can’t tour.” By that he meant not only artists that have been grounded by the pandemic, but artists who couldn’t tour before it. Maybe they “couldn’t find a drummer” to be able to hit the road, but they could “make a record.”
“Weird stuff,” he added. “Catchy stuff.” He has already started reaching out to more people. Meanwhile, he can’t help but feel that the album’s “natural calm” is reflective of the state of this pandemic summer, which has some of the season’s perennial idyll even as the country contends with disease, economic malaise, and political unrest — all leading to an uncertain fall in every regard. In some ways the pandemic and its disruptions has felt to Burnet like a “snowless blizzard that has lasted for months now…. I want to hope for the best, but gather ye acorns while ye may,” he said.
One thing he’s sure of is that he and the musicians he has worked with over the series are “going to keep working,” he said. “At a certain point, people just want music. They just want songs.” He’s also sure that he’s in the right place to weather the future. Early in the pandemic, he said, he found himself musing over “where the perfect place was to weather the storm. And to be honest, it’s right here.”
Waiting on a Sunrise, vol. 3 is available at Bandcamp.