In the era of laptop orchestras, it can be refreshing to hear a single person take the time to flesh out their creative identities by actually performing the instruments themselves. Will Boelts has released a steady stream of self-produced and solo-recorded albums (from Cedar Falls, Iowa) since the beginning of 2014, more ambitious and polished at each turn. Boelts’ third full-length, Big New Joyless, rounds his sound into something like the wry and dry propulsion of Guided By Voices and the subtly sophisticated heartbreak of Elliott Smith – particularly in the latter’s early-career Heatmiser incarnation. On “Harakiri”, Boelts’ tight guitar hook and rah-rah beat take the forefront and nicely surround his fuzzed-out vocals of doomed devotion, while the coda introduces the dissonance that features more prominently on the rest of the album. There’s no evidence that Boelts gigs (or even could given his one-man lineup), but in any sort of fair world, music this earnest has an audience waiting to hear it.
