The Breakdown
It’s been a while since anything’s been heard of Daniel Busheikin and his No Frills buddies. The Toronto band’s self-released debut album ‘Downward Dog’ trundled into the US college radio charts of summer ’22 with its lo-fi jangling pop, chiming with Mersey Beat and 45rpm melodics. Busheikin’s songs saw funny and fragile tangled together, stories dealing with mundane everyday clutter, underpinning sadness and deeper struggles wrapped honestly in a DIY sound.
Perhaps the low-key notoriety needed a pause. As Busheikin himself reflects “Coming out of the Downward Dog album cycle, the dissonance I experienced between performing as an entertainer and writing songs about depression led me to the concept of the ‘sad clown paradox,’ which I find very relatable”. No surprise then that the second No Frills album, out now on the irrepressible We Are Busy Bodies, takes ‘Sad Clown’ as its title and finds Busheikin plus friends once again unpacking challenges with a wry painted smile.
Opener Drive Me sees the No Frills signature sound reintroduce itself, the plaintive acoustic strummed intro, the jangling, airy skip of the band and Busheikin’s weary, deadpan voice softened by bassist Maddy Wilde’s understated vocal harmony. Sarah Records and C86 sonics are a reference point but there’s a lyrical sting which spikes any jauntiness. The song veers between road trip niceties (“Buy me, buy me a pop and a slice”) and a car crash chill (“The cops are on their way to lift me out instead of you”) as the story of bitterness and dependency unwinds.
Another ‘on the road’ tune, Wringing it Out, matches a mid pace cruise with Matt Buckberrough’s zippy slide guitar as Busheikin sings about a less than free-wheeling future: “Nothing to say/ I’m on my way/heading to my certainty”. Drummer Jonathon Pappo then whips up the pace a little, gearing No Frills towards the song’s faux-stomping play out and an double-edged, ear-wormy hook, “Sad clowns on the open road/ headed for the edge oh-oh”. It’s pure power pop which hits a sudden wall of silence.
Crucially such innocently-happy/crushingly-sad ying and yang doesn’t get over-stretched on the album. Whatever the song, a fragile tenderness trickles alongside. Open Book glows with honesty and ties itself in emotional knots with some achingly graphic lines. “Hold your face with two hands like I’m carrying precious sand/ falling through every crack like a broken thing still intact” is a Costello-at-his-tenderest couplet. Busheikin also cannily expands the No Frills sound here, a light echo on the Spector snare beat, unshowy string quartet swoons and a dash of flute, all adding a momentary glow to the song.
The dry conversational Stephanie brings a similar ambiguous levity but the tangled relationship mapped out on Nothing perhaps captures the slow decline of a partnership most sharply. Here the music and sentiment merge naturally, the child-like piano pattern, the melancholic minor chords and a wired, shrill guitar solo raising the inner tension. There’s a Stephen Merritt/ Magnetic Fields resignation drifting through this undramatic tear-jerker which you could smuggle onto the ’69 Love Songs’ without it looking out of place.
Some songs on ‘Sad Clown’ do blur the boundaries between the autobiographical and barbed impressions of 2020’s western living. The shimmering sixties ballad meets chiming guitar cha-cha of Mr Mean exposes the shallow relief of wasted TV screen time (“what a shameful distraction/what a shameful piece of cake” is a great Busheikin slur) while the infectious La’s-like roll of the dreamy Shopping in the Toothpaste Aisle merges the mundanity of drug-store shopping with debilitating indecision and lonely panic. It’s probably Never Enough which digs into everyday disconnections most tellingly with the song’s stripped back starkness and bare boned chord sequence. ”Shovel the snow/mow the lawn/pay the bills/what a slog” Busheikin mumbles monotonously. Then as sombre strings quiver comes “In the beginning god made man accumulate things and stuff/ Like a game, Oh what fun to have never enough”. It’s a song that reaches out way beyond the personal.
‘Sad Clown’ is also an album that stretches the No Frills dynamic principles a little further, but always with a carefully calibrated purpose. The recording might mark a first venture into string quartet arrangements but this extra detailing is never overwhelming. Take the pumping Dream Syndicate meets Petty romp of Under the Gun, where the sighing orchestration and stoic piano add significance to the song’s final frames. The track gets as close to big music as No Frills ever need to be, there’s even room for Alex Hamlyn’s raunchy sax break, but the band avoid any false romanticising. Their dynamics remain loose and live sounding while Busheikin ensures things stay firmly grounded with his droll non-voice delivery and definitive Bummer Pop throwaway lines. “Take a scented Uber to the Mall” says it all.
The ’Sad Clown’ paradox at the heart of No Frills music actually does the opposite of what you might expect. The sprightly, indie pop setting of the tunes doesn’t mask Busheikin’s deeply honest personal reflections. Somehow the infectious hooks and toe tapping beats encourage you to hone in on what’s being said, then once inside these songs there’s so much more to discover and think about. As Busheikin quietly notes on the poignant resolution of the album’s closer The End, “We are attached by a question no-one asked”.
Get your copy of ‘Sad Clown‘ by No Frills from your local record store or direct from We Are Busy Bodies HERE
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