Summer is once again upon us, and I can’t think of a better soundtrack
for these lazy, hazy, sun-burned days than the music of Southern California’s
Radar Bros. The long-running (though currently dormant) psychedelic band led by
singer-guitarist Jim Putnam conjures images of sunny, smog-veiled skies; weedy,
parched earth; wide, open spaces, and cool, breezy evenings across a remarkable
if not prolific output of albums, which include And the Surrounding
Mountains (2002), Fallen Leaf Pages (2005), The Illustrated
Garden (2010), and Eight (2013). Radar Bros. are not sunshine pop,
however. Theirs is not a happy, sunshiny kind of rock and roll (more pastoral,
post-Syd Barrett Pink Floyd than neo-Nuggets psych). Many of their songs—particularly
“Papillon,” “Rock of the Lake,” “Warm Rising Sun,” and “Lake Life”—are dreamy,
surreal, and laidback—but they also have a weighed-down quality to them: a profound
melancholy, a current of sadness and unease that moves beneath the glassy, rippling,
tranquil surface. And it’s this aspect that makes the Radar Bros. summer sounds
so evocative and affecting right now. These are days of high anxiety: coronavirus,
isolation, recession, George Floyd, national unrest, White House fascism and
racism, and so on. So even as we bask in the radiance of the summer sun, we can’t
fully escape the reality of our difficult surroundings. None of this is to say
that the Radar Bros. are a summer bummer. They’re just striking a heavy chord
with me—and the juxtaposition of beauty and decay that I hear in their music
just sounds so right, right now. I feel an affinity for the Radar Bros., and I
carry their songs in my head and heart as I begin to settle into this summer of
weirdness and uncertainty.
