Over the past couple of months, Philadelphia, PA-based indie rock quartet Oldermost, led by its frontman Bradford Bucknam have received attention across the blogosphere and this site in particular for a sound that draws from Nick Drake, Wish You Were Here-era Pink Floyd and 70s AM radio rock as yo would have heard on the band’s first two singles “Honey With Tea” and “Finally Unsure.”
The band’s third and latest single is a cover of Graham Nash’s “I Used To Be A King.” And as Bucknum explains in press notes “Songs for Beginners is not necessarily a unique find in a record store bin, but the record still feels like a special discovery when you first set on eyes on the simple and somewhat lusterless album cover. ‘I Used To Be A King’ starts with a tempo just slow enough to hold the listener in a state of suspension. You think: there is a release on the horizon. And then Nash sings ‘It’s alright …’ and the song picks up, but only to build more tension and then there is the most rewarding part of the song at the tail end of the chorus—’No one is going to break my heart again’—where the listener experiences that sweet release. This track also seemed like a great opportunity to highlight the string arrangements that have helped make our musical output stand apart. There’s also a sweetness and a melancholy to the song and it takes a healthy dose of both to mix up an Oldermost song.” While being a fairly straightforward cover, it’s a shimmering, gorgeous cover that emphasizes the bittersweet nature of the original.
