Market

'Well I Asked You A Question''s sonic palette wonderfully melds the physical and the synthetic: sampled orchestras duel with real orchestras (“Fantasy”), a robot’s spoken word duets with a choir of humans (“Around”), and blasts of noise “solo” over traditional rock instrumentation (“Rachel’s Getting Married”).

Though many of the sounds on the record are augmented and fractured, Mendelsohn still worked with the Market band, consisting of Stephen Becker, Natasha Bergman, and Duncan Standish, to build out the songs. He wanted “musical accidents with frayed edges left in still a group of people, in a room, playing songs.” Beyond the core band, world-expanding contributions came from Katie von Schleicher, Mike Haldeman (Moses Sumney, Alto Palo), Justin Felton (L’Rain, Strugglin’), Rose Droll (Feist, Art Feynman) and Helen Newby with engineering by Adam Hirsch (Sam Amidon, Stephen Steinbrink).

'Well I Asked You a Question' is ambitious and complex, but Mendelsohn tempers those goals by aiming at heart, toward the very human. Lyrically, it’s an exploration of speaking, asking, responding and the muddled nature of talking to one’s self versus interacting with others. In his words, he’s alternately “escaping the noise of the world by going inward” and “escaping the noise of the brain by going outward.” Whether swaddled in sound or absorbing the errant thoughts it carries, we’re along for the ride.

“...conjures up the spirit of stuff like Neutral Milk Hotel. I think it’s very rare to find indie songs that can really... bring out certain emotions in you the way this one does. It makes you feel melancholic but also optimistic at the same time. Very special.” JAMES ACASTER via THE NEEDLE DROP.