Pushbutton Romance
An Album from Rich ArithmeticPushbutton Romance
Rich Arithmetic – Kool Kat Musik 2024
“Heady. Singable. Sometimes thought-provoking. Definitely full of irresistible hooks..”
“Rich Arithmetic is like a painter who colors
his songs with shades of musical yesteryear…”
Pushbutton Romance
PUSHBUTTON ROMANCE is a 15-song collection that begins with a short, unexpected chamber pop string quartet before bouncing into the catchy new wave-meets-power pop of When You Want Somebody (To Make Love To), which sounds like something The Knack might have recorded. Several other songs – notably, Carry You (Redux) and You Are Always Right – join the power pop parade, and, elsewhere, my trademark 12-string guitar – largely missing from my last album – shimmers time and time again throughout the new album, as do criss-crossing harmonies and surprising chord progressions. You could almost imagine Frank Sinatra taking a crack at Battered & Broke. Bend the Arc and Moral Blight are power folk protest songs.
One of the features of Pushbutton Romance is three coming-of-age songs I wrote to comprise the “Teenage Hymn” trilogy, starting with Tan All Over, a quasi-Brian Wilson-by-way-of-XTC song about the confused musings of a youngster growing up next door to Betty Page, the famous pin-up model; continuing on with religious iconography to describe teenage mating rituals of Dragging Main; before coming to a conclusion with a baroque pop instrumental, An Introduction to the Parents.
And, finally, the album ends with a cello accompanying me playing a simple acoustic guitar “on the back porch” in Lullabye for Lola, a short instrumental piece that ties the last song back to the first.
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