Crate Digging: Joshua Gibbard, SIREN Music

Crate Digging is a music discovery platform where contributors take home and discuss two records from across Concord Recorded Music’s active and historical labels.

Joshua Gibbard, music supervisor and producer at SIREN Music, discusses his top two finds.

My frontline find is Intellexual - Intellexual. I hadn't come across Intellexual before and wasn't really too sure what to expect. I was initially drawn in by the album's artwork, which I thought might be an indication of something pretty minimalistic, though was pleasantly surprised to find that the record is actually more of a smorgasbord of tracks that feel exploratively unrestricted. 

There's a consistent production style running throughout Intellexual, however each track offers a slight detour into various genres and songwriting styles that mutate the duo's sound as they venture through them. The result is something that feels more like a wandering stream of consciousness, full of unexpected twists and turns, than what you'd normally expect from a pre-meditated pop album sound. After listening through to the album a few times, I later discovered that Intellexual is a new project of Nico Segal and Nate Fox's - who many will be familiar with from their previous work in Donnie Trumpet and The Social Experiment - this is especially apparent on the track ‘Roxstar'.

The opening track 'Popstar' is one of my favourites on the album, it's a real journey through some hugely contrasting sections and a great example of how Intellexual freely manoeuvre through styles that aren't on an immediately obvious path together. In this specific song we start off with a piano loop and vocal refrain that I could imagine someone like John Legend releasing, before somehow arriving at a section towards the end that is a little reminiscent of Dario G's 'Sunchyme' (which isn't a bad thing in my book!). The song immediately introduces us to Intellexual's liking for pitch adjusted vocals and processing, which I'm personally a big fan of, and also in the later verses the collaborative nature of the project with featured vocals from Benny Sings and Liam Kazar. 

A couple of other tracks from Intellexual that I would highly recommend checking out are 'Money' and the brilliant country ballad duet 'Overthinking'. 

I can imagine 'Boca' being featured on something really cool - it has a kind of mysterious and luxurious character to it, which could work for a multitude of scripts. 'Like I Feel' also has a very emotional and lyrical simplicity to it that I think in the right context could be extremely moving.

For a catalogue record I went for Vince Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown Christmas. I was already very familiar with this record, it's been one of my go-to Christmas albums for a few years now and with it being that time of the year again I couldn't resist choosing it as my Catalogue Release pick.

There's a sophistication in Guaraldi's arrangements that almost makes me feel more sophisticated myself just from listening to them; I imagine myself hosting some kind of festive black-tie get-together and wowing my guests, shrimp cocktail in hand, with a hypothesis that Charlie Brown's upset with the commercialisation of Christmas wasn't actually intended to be literal, but instead symbolic of a disillusioned nation of people that no longer felt that they were in control of their own fate. Whilst the majority of the guests nod along with furrowed brows exclaiming that I've once again made an observation so acute that they're flabbergasted it hadn't occurred to them themselves, one partygoer claims that I'm just saying buzzwords and have no idea what I'm talking about. A few moments later, after the naysayer is swiftly removed by security, I smile and gesture to the remaining guests to please help themselves to more cigars. 

There are obvious standouts on A Charlie Brown Christmas, such as 'Linus and Lucy', the vocal version of 'Christmas Time Is Here' and 'O Tennanbaum', but one that I'm always surprised isn't more celebrated is 'My Little Drum' - a reimagining of 'Little Drummer Boy' for piano, children's choir and percussion. 

I could see pretty much any track from A Charlie Brown Christmas being featured on a Christmas campaign (and suspect this must have happened, if not multiple times already?).

Funny you should mention that, Josh…

If you’d like to know more, or you’re keen to discover more of our repertoire, please contact: tom.frank@concord.com.