Having topped the annual writers’ poll for album of the year and made number 3 with our readers for their 2025 offering “Mr Luck and Ms Doom”, you’d think it might be time for The Delines to rest on their laurels for a bit. But there’s a new album, and extensive touring in the Spring and now a 10th anniversary reissue of “The Scenic Sessions”.
Willy Vlautin explains how the album came about: “In the early summer of 2015, The Delines were still a young band with only one album out. Amy Boone, who lived in Austin at the time, flew up to Portland for some summer shows and to cut a single for an autumn tour. We were thinking three songs at the most. The problem was that I kept bringing in new tunes and our producer suddenly had time open up at his Scenic Burrows Studio.”
‘Cool Your Jets’ is what we have come to know from their later albums as a typical Vlautin narrative. A whole novel in one verse. “Eddie’s been on the phone all night with his wife. She said she’d leave if he didn’t quit the life. He was crying and begging her to stay. But the moment he sets his bags down. He’ll get that itch to get away.” A Stax guitar line repeats through the middle of the song and Cory Gray’s Wurlitzer piano adds the appropriate touch of melancholy. ‘Gold Dreaming’ was cut in just two takes and it certainly has a fresh feel, with Amy Boone channelling Dusty Springfield on a song that has a relaxed groove reflected in the words, which are more upbeat than we often expect from Willy Vlautin, until the final line restores our faith that all is not well with the world.
The central part of the album is 3 songs, which barely manage 7 minutes between them. As well as ‘Gold Dreaming’, there is the brief atmospheric instrumental ‘Night Bus’ and ‘Friday Night’, which has Boone playing out a domestic moment over some southern soul vamping from the band until it fades away after a couple of minutes. Store runs for wine and ice cream which extend into huge shopping lists, Friday night in the Delines mansion…
Cory Gray contributes two short barroom instrumentals, ‘Saloon Six’ and ‘The Piano Player Always Drinks For Free,’ separated by ‘Sirens In the Night.’ Only Willy Vlautin could show you a whole movie in the at first sight seemingly disconnected lines “My folks’ car’s been stolen twice. A stray bullet hole in the picture window. There was a killing up at the Hi-Lite. Gunshots in the night. Somebody’s life. Don’t they see it’s somebody’s life.” He is truly one of the great songwriters of our time.
The liner notes tell the story of how the rest of the album came about: “Our single was already morphing into an EP when we heard a demo Amy did on her phone [‘I Wasn’t Looking‘]. We got her to play the song again with some fancy mics in front of her so we could put it on the record. Then Willy played us this Sparklehorse tune at Cory’s while we were drinking wine, and we decided to cover it as well. All of a sudden, we had a bunch of tunes on our single.” The Baritone Guitar of John Askew drifts across the world-weary soundscape of that Sparklehorse cover, ‘Sunshine‘, adding an extra layer to the song.
You may have noticed that we quite like The Delines at AUK. There’s a reason for that. They have taken some of the building blocks of Americana and created something unique. While the focus is often on Vlautin’s songs and Boone’s singing make no mistake that this is a band where each component matters and is the perfect fit. Cory Gray’s piano and trumpet add impressionistic brush strokes. Freddy Trujillo and Sean Oldham mesh together never overplaying but always knowing where a fill will accentuate the words or lead players. With three almost perfect albums under their belt following “The Scenic Sessions” this could have become a footnote. The parting section of the liner notes underlines why it is an essential reissue, allowing it find it’s place in the Delines canon. “The band always thinks of “Scenic Sessions” as The Delines at summer camp. We recorded it during a minor heat wave, it’s loose and a bit rawer than most of our other records, and there’s a no-pressure easygoing feel to the session that really comes across. It’s a band favourite, too, because while recording it I think we all knew we were becoming a real band.”
