Loading details…
about this album
Fifty Six is Joel Chapen, a solo artist from Boston. His music is dream pop, a lush atmospheric pop music with breathy surreal vocals over a lush production sound based in electronic music and sampling. Joel’s haunting vocal sound carries the listener into the music’s own deep atmosphere. The songs arrangements carry a feeling of plaintive harmony on the back of his classical acoustic guitars’ muted warmth. The sonic world of Fifty Six is one that grows as you listen, the mood that takes over begins as a spark; but over time the depth of the material reveals itself. The lyrics are simple and pointed; they speak of situations of simplicity. For example the song Empty Station speaks of a person standing on a subway platform looking at the sky remarking, ‘what silence…’ The haiku like simplicity of the lyrics and the melody makes this sentiment cut like a knife, the reverie that ensues is a combination of both the musical mood and the simplicity of the statement that makes the image bond so tightly with the music. It is this kind of effortless drama that makes these songs so potent. These songs are not epics, they are short, pointed and extremely complex emotionally; these are not songs for children they are for young adults looking at the world from a point of view teetering on optimism, yet weathered in hardship. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.