OLDIES
Following “Pueblo Nights,” Berkley’s first single Dallas Observer likened to “a warm bath,” the Denton, Texas-based songwriter returns with “Oldies,” the latest track from his upcoming full-length debut album Pueblo. Featuring ethereal lap steel from Margo Price and Orville Peck sideman, Luke Schneider, “Oldies” exorcises the memories that we’d rather forget but can’t escape.
The track blooms with hazy guitars and keyboard pads that nod to the 90s heyday of Bonnie Raitt. On top of it all, Berkley connects listeners to impressionist and detailed scenes ranging from the last encounter with a lover to looking up old friends online: You deleted all your posts but your avatar’s still there/you’re in some kitchen eating pasta with someone who doesn’t care.
Each track from Berkley’s album deals with what comes and goes through the passage of time, but “Oldies” was specifically inspired by his favorite hometown radio station, KDZA Oldies 107.9. Berkley threads his memories to the decline of locally owned radio stations: Right here, this spot on the map on summer vacation/that year, remember that, when the oldies used to play on a different station?
With elements of 70s country and modern pop production, the song’s textures and intimate vocals position it somewhere in time between early Emmylou Harris and the latest Ethan Gruska. Berkley grounds listeners in the song’s lyrical and musical trip through time with a revelatory chorus: What’s behind you is closer than it appears/future facing staring backward in the mirror.
The single’s b-side, available only the physical release, is a sound collage of modulated field recordings from Berkley’s hometown of Pueblo, Colorado. Berkley spent three days gathering sounds from locations significant to his youth, then ran the recordings through a vocoder. Over those recordings, he layered synthesizers and samples from a faux radio show he recorded with a boombox as a kindergartner.
“Oldies” is set for release on August 21st online and in a limited edition cassette format available at alwaysberkley.com and alwaysberkley.bandcamp.com. The full album will be released digitally and physically October 23.
Digital Single and Limited Edition Cassette
Video
Photography: Juli Williams