Austin Sound

The Glowing City, the new album from Bill Baird’s Sunset, is an ambitious sprawling tribute to psychedelic, prog, folk, and post-rock. Attributed to seven musicians plus another eighteen (twenty-one or more if you count Townes the Dog, the guy who recorded street traffic, and whomever played in the Tejano band on the radio next door to the studio), The Glowing City is filled with lush instrumentation and voices that appear from unlit corners. There’s a sense that maybe complete chaos is right around the bend when all these folks are allowed to get together.

At eighteen tracks and almost 80 minutes long, The Glowing City is a difficult album to digest in one or two listens. Like the best parts of Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother and/or Obscured By Clouds with a dash of Sgt Pepper, Bowie, and Love, this album yields new gifts every listen as the nuances and influences are picked up and peeled away.

It would be easy to say Baird would have been well served to work with a producer to cut a couple of the longer songs down to size or just drop some of the other less interesting tracks, but with something this creative, it’s probably for the best that nothing was mangled by outside fingers. For example, the electro-chanting of “Just a Phase” – which follows the glorious brass filled opener “Zombies” – can’t possibly stand alone as a song, but what would be accomplished by scrapping the 2 minutes of throbbing sound? It’s not like 78 minutes of music would have made the difference between “pretty damned good” and “instant classic”.

Sunset’s bio makes mention of writing songs and segues; Thankfully, the segues like “Just a Phase” were left alone. Similarly, rejoice and celebrate because the crown jewels of the album weren’t edited down to 4-minute radio bites. “Twenty-four Karat Soul” is probably the most straight-ahead song on the album (it’s also the second longest at over 6 minutes), with a repeated chorus, jangling instrumentation, and an outro featuring a violin solo where so many others would have slapped electric guitar wankery. Those kinds of subtle twists are the reward for being patient and understanding that Sunset isn’t going to leave you hanging indefinitely, no matter how long the song.

Listeners who make it to “Life is Rad (Just Say Yes)” will inevitably find themselves smiling along to the wheezing guitars and keys, chiming bells, and Baird’s declarations that life is rad even though he’s the owner of a lonely heart. So often, Baird’s Sunset is discussed in context of his former blog buzz band SOUNDTeam which followed the all-to-familiar blog buzz band career arc (fun recordings - blog buzz - crazy hype - major label recordings - blog backlash - disintegration). The lyrics of “Life is Rad” might not be a direct rumination on that past life, but it certainly feels like Baird is doing a-ok in the wake.

It’s hard to describe The Glowing City after repeated listens. It’s neither sad nor happy, it ebbs and flows like the life it seems to be celebrating. The album is billed as “Parts 3 and 4 of Sandy” and references “Sandy” in the lyrics and song titles, but the identity of “Sandy” is irrelevant. He, she, or it should be flattered that Baird’s cosmic freakout is this damned good.