Keepsake of the Week: “little love lullabies” by corner club
“little love lullabies” is the first EP from indie-pop duo corner club. One month after its initial release, the EP is this week’s #KOTW.
In this semi-weekly blog series, we post our favorite new or re-discovered releases in independent music, our Keepsake of the Week, or #KOTW.
From “I dreamt you might be the one” to “What if you were the one?” Those are the last lines of the first and last track, respectively, of corner club’s debut EP. The record cycles through six songs, most under two minutes long, that tell the story of an intimate relationship from its inception to its end. The songs deliver what is promised in the album’s name: little lullabies about love, from the first date shared over hot chocolate to the memories re-visited alone. The journey, both lyrically and musically as the songs soar through the circle of fifths forward and then backward, ends exactly where it began. The same ambient noise, which sounds like the clacking of glasses and morning murmurings of a New York cafe, that are heard in the first track are heard again in the last. Only now, the hopeful “might” has become the conclusive “were.”
The duo that is corner club, made up of poet / vocalist Sav Du and guitarist / producer Mike Zhang, has been releasing music since 2018. Their sound has become signature. Expect Sav’s airy vibrato to ride along a repeating wave of guitar or piano with some household percussion (shakers, tea cups, etc.) tossed in at all the right moments. Expect New York nostalgia, such as in their 2019 single “Manhattanhenge.” Expect them to develop but to never stray too far from this signature soundscape they’ve created, perhaps best illustrated in the journey from Eighth Avenue, walked in “Manhattanhenge,” to Ninth Avenue, strolled down in the new EP’s “binary tree.”
I love a good bookend, I love a good concept album, I love a good use of alliteration, and I love corner club. I first met the duo when they played for a Music + Mic Night at the Museum of Chinese in America in summer 2019. Mike brought me homemade vegan chocolate chip cookies after coming to a previous Mic Night in which I (the host) had joked that the way to get booked was to bribe me with cookies. Suffice to say, it worked. They booked a second Mic Night for that autumn, and I had the honor of hosting them a third time in our first unofficial Keepsake show, Hindsight, this past January. I cannot wait to hear what comes next out of that corner in the far side of the room.
As an honorary member of the corner club, and since they are already lifelong members of Keepsake House, I’m happy and humbled to introduce their debut EP, which I’m still listening to one month after its release. Time to curl up under the covers and let the lullabies soothe you into a dreamy sleep...
Stream “little love lullabies” everywhere now.
Mike Zhang and Sav Du of corner club.
