Squints Palledorous
The Great Bambino (Boat Dreams From the Hill)

Whoever local songwriter Squints Palledorous is, she’s apparently got a soft spot for the classic 1993 baseball film The Sandlot, from which both her pseudonym and the title of her debut album, The Great Bambino, are derived. Beyond that, however, there’s no information available regarding the identity of Squints, who is referred to in promotional materials only as a “mythical Vancouver GarageBand broken beat savante” and is never credited by name.

The 12 songs that make up The Great Bambino clock in at just 25 minutes, and they consist of barely there guitar incantations, hushed vocals, feathery keyboard tones, and a few toe-tapping electronic beats. The lo-fi sonic textures, particularly in the singing, betray the songs’ homespun origins, but Squints manages to make this an asset rather than a limitation; the background hiss makes the sparse arrangement of the opening lullaby “Wander Wonder” seem all the more fragile, while the cavernous, MIDI-sounding piano on “Wingman” is a perfect fit for its cinematic synthscape. The fact that the album is available on cassette adds to the material’s rough-around-the-edges aesthetic.

Squints favours subtle moods over in-your-face hooks, with the vocals frequently obscured by soft-focus synths and swaths of reverb. Even when a catchy melody rises to the surface, as on the beat-driven “Sisters” or the twee, lovestruck ballad “Comfort Please”, the production renders it hazy. In this way, these tracks are shadowy and carry an air of mystery—not unlike the woman who made them.