Friday Mile: Good Luck Studio - A Showcase Of The Modern Indie Duet

Tuesday, 23 March 2010 , 0 Comments

by Jon Ostrow



Friday Mile is the kind of band that makes you wonder why more artists have not embraced the use of a male/ female vocal partnership. The Seattle-based indie/ pop group, formed by Jace Krause and Hannah Williams, truly share the lead vocal responsibility. Their similar styles allow for intertwined melodies and perfect harmonies, yet can be shaped to a tone to allow for contrasting qualities, necessary for keeping the music from becoming too 'fluffy'.

In October 2009, Friday Mile released their third album, Good Luck Studio. Produced by Dennis MacKay (Bowie, Harrison, Lou Reed) and mixed at Avast by MacKay and Stuart Hallerman (Built To Spill, Death Cab For Cutie, Soundgarden), the recording of Good Luck Studio is of the highest fidelity- warm and clean tones with a soundstage (your sense of width, depth and height when you listen to music — just as you would sense the placement of different instruments in a live concert setting. Individual vocal and instrumental "images" make up your stereo system's soundstage*) that offers true clarity of each instrumental subtlety as well as the full range of vocals.

Musically, Good Luck Studio, is fairly straight-forward pop, with subtle glimpses of folk, mostly apparent in the vocals, and at times shows the intensity of indie rock. This full range of characteristics is no more evident than in I Took It All, where both Jace and Hannah are given full opportunity to showcase their abilities, each strutting their stuff in a way that is not heard from the smoothness of their harmonies. Hannah really comes alive in this track, where she acts as a siren, hitting the high notes with precision that could send chills down your spine.  This is immediately contrasted by Autograph, a tune with a form based off of building (melodies, harmonies, layers, etc) that really layers the vocals in harmonic perfection. Again this track lets Hannah show herself as a real presence within the group - the chorus dissolves into a bridge that opens with Hannah at her grittiest and most soulful.

Though the vocals seem to be the forefront of the album, stealing some of the thunder from the tight rhythm section, the musicianship really does a great job of keeping Good Luck Studio upbeat. The band keeps the music varied, at times using instruments such as pedal steel or trumpets to accent the tone of a song, but never strays too far away from their specific sound. The real instrumental highlights on this album are the constant syncopation between the punchy bass lines and the snappy drums work, as heard in Westerfield.

Good Luck Studio is a truly shining example of the kind of potential that lies in the combined abilities of a male/ female duet. By using both singers as lead vocalists instead of each only taking half of the responsibilities, the songs are capable of so much more than today's average pop/ folk group. Friday Mile's sense of pop gives them the natural ability to create hooks that are completely contagious, and their use of duet-style harmonies put them in a league of their own.

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