Stefan Weich is a Los Angeles, CA-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who specializes in a dreamy exploration of traditional music structures, alternate guitar tunings and analog synthesizers under a number of monikers, including Das Bowls, Chicle, Couch Baby and others; however, his forthcoming effort, Granite Prism is Weich’s solo debut and first album under his own name — and the album thematically explore the songwriter’s feelings of loneliness, aimlessness and his search for love and acceptance in a large, modern metropolis. Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past month or so, you may recall that I wrote about Granite Prism’s first single and video “Holy Nights,” which had Weich pairing his plaintive falsetto croon with dreamily ambient synths, soft padded drumming and gently strummed guitar in a deliberate and carefully crafted song that sounds indebted to Brian Eno but with a plaintive yearning at its core.
The album’s second and latest single “Louie” continues on the same vein as “Holy Night” as swirling and ambient electronics are paired with soft padded drumming, bursts of bluesy guitar chords and Weich’s plaintive falsetto crooning lyrics about a relationship in which both people are slowly drifting apart. At the heart of the song is the unspoken and built up resentments that can cause people to slowly drift apart over time, and a lingering sense of regret of what happened — and how it happened.
The recently released music video for the song also fittingly featured some warped and kaleidoscopic, psychedelic imagery — in some way, it evokes what I would imagine tripping on hallucinogens would feel like as you were wandering around a lonely and surreal city landscape.