Led by its Berlin, Germany-based founding member and bassist Sash and featuring Boston, MA-based saxophonist Dana Colley, best known as a former member of Morphine and their latest member, the Belfast, Northern Ireland-based vocalist Vadim Zeberg, the members of indie act The Deltahorse have managed throughout their few years of existence to create a sound that feels and sounds lived in and created live with all three members playing in a studio, despite the fact that because of the distance between each member, they can’t perform together, and reportedly have rarely seen each other face-to-face. As result, the members of the band have never had the experience of playing in a room and picking up on the physical and visual cues that musicians can pick up on that allow them to easily play off and riff off one another. And yet when the trio does write and record, the sessions are treated as though they were impromptu jam sessions with each member adding their individual musical talents and tendencies to create a swaggering and uniquely genre-defying sound.
Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site for some time, you’re most likely familiar with The Deltahorse in some fashion or another — and you’d know that earlier this month I wrote about “Happy Heart (Can Go For Miles),” the first single off the act’s long-anticipated and soon-to-be released, full-length debut Transatlantic. “Happy Heart” consisted of Colley’s swaggering and sultry electric baritone saxophone passages, stuttering drumming and drum programming, Sash’s propulsive bass lines with Vadim’s plaintive vocals signing lyrics about how a happy heart can endure almost everything; however, just under the surface was an underlying bitter irony. The album’s second and latest single “Call It A Day” is a cinematic and forceful single consisting of slashing, staccato piano chords, boom bap drum programming, Colley’s swaggering and strutting electric baritone sax skronking, subtly ominous and swirling guitar and bass chords, propulsive percussion and Zeberg’s coolly ironic vocals singing lyrics that hint at the desire to continually move forward and physical desire while beginning to cement their reputation for crafting material with deep, danceable grooves paired with a literate, cinematic sound.
The recently released music video employs a rather simple concept — the band’s Vadim Zeberg in close up singing the song with the Atlantic Ocean behind him. Throughout Zeberg is revealed to have a rather expressive face, at one point after briefly looking at his shoulder at something, he begins to smile mischievously, at other points bobbing his head while singing, and at other points looking at things with an ironically, raised eyebrow.