bio
he best pop music doesn’t really exist. It has no birthplace, no form, no place; it is transitive, ethereal, a puff of smoke, a pastry that melts so sweetly on your tongue that you swear you will remember its taste forever, it is a memory, a ghost, a dream. Sure, songs are made somewhere: they have writers who pull them out of whatever psychic soup songs come from, they have musicians who dress their skeletons in beautiful finery, they have producers and engineers who stitch the clothing together and make them presentable. But when pop music is at its best, when it stops being merely something to listen to, when it truly becomes the stuff that changes lives, it sheds all of its beautiful clothing and history and its birthplace, and simply is. As if it has always been. As if it was obvious. It becomes as timeless as the truth.
The best pop music is made by people who themselves are timeless and mysterious. Most are public mysteries, like The Beatles, who are so famous and popular and who have been written about so much that their very reality, their humanity, becomes a vagueness amidst all the rumors and stories and mythologies. But occasionally an artist of a different character comes along, a private artist who, no matter how famous their music becomes, always remains shrouded in obscurity, enigmatic and elusive.
prattle on, rick. is just that sort of artist. There are of course hard facts that can be rattled off at parties (prattle on, rick. is the moniker for a revolving door of Nashville-based musicians with the only permanent member being singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist, Patrick Rickelton; Rickelton was also in Nashville-based bands Greenland and Noble Three) yet nothing one can learn on the internet or by speaking to Rickelton himself can demystify the experience of listening to his music.
prattle on, rick. is a set of contradictions: at once spiritual and secular, vague and close, a kiss goodnight and a long embrace over your morning coffee. The music wraps you in arms of airy texture, with vocals that are soothing and comforting, only to bite down when you least expect it, a reminder that there are no easy lessons in life. Yet, through it all there is Rickelton, his voice like a guiding mentor, or an encouraging father, reassuring us that, though life is hard and filled with disillusionment and heartache, there is peace to be found at the other end or during those quiet moments when you look up and see that the clouds have broken and the sun is kissing your cheeks through the fall leaves.
prattle on, rick. is that best type of pop musician, mysterious, dignified, as close as a lover and unafraid to lead the listener into hard, difficult places, and yet equally unwilling to simply leave us there. There is deliverance to be found in his music, a salvation that is palpable and delivered honestly and truthfully, so that when Rickelton sings at the end of his debut EP, COMMUNION BREAD, “Someday we’ll sing/a perfect melody in perfect harmony/we’ll worship perfectly/see what we’ve longed to see/where everyone we meet is long-lost family” you believe every word. Not because the melody is beautiful, or because this lyric is at the tail end of 20 minutes of gorgeous neo-folk, or because you’re a prattle on, rick. fan. No, you believe it because it’s the truth.
And the best pop music always tells the truth
- Tres Crow