Carlo Meriano
Toronto, Ontario, Canada | Established. Jan 01, 2009 | SELF
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Carlo Meriano
Independent
Three stars
Carlo Meriano lives in Toronto and knows his ways around some of the dark corners of life. If you doubt, listen to Denton on Doomsday, the most ambitious number on this nine-song debut album. The song opens with a sweaty evocation of a drunkard’s dry-mouthed morning, moves through an instrumental break whose many harmonic changes presage a narrative full of surprises, through to a showdown rich with distorted guitar and mocking yowls from lap steel. In this and other songs, Meriano shows his gift for laying down a compelling groove, while muttering his scuffed lyrics up his sleeve like a gambler breathing on his dice. The bright jangling accompaniment of To Serve Man aptly portrays the wired alertness of the insomniac in the lyrics, which drift toward rapping as the silt builds up. “I want to be a truck driver on the highway called Nothing to Lose,” Meriano sings in Plan B, and you can smell the exhaust. Robert Everett-Green - Globe And Mail
Dude. Twilight Zone. 'Nuff said. I couldn't have said it better myself although I wish I did.
(Also) influenced by Elliot Smith, Moldy Peaches, Johnny Cash, Magnetic Fields and often featuring a ukulele, harmonica, lap steel, violin, banjo and glockenspiel it almost creates an obvious mathematical explanation as to where this twangy indie rock band got their sound.... the sum of all influences divided by the sum of all instruments, multiplied by the percentage of random in the Twilight Zone equals Carlo Meriano.
Makes sense to me.
The album has this sort of haunting enthusiasm to each song which makes my stomach knot up with an obsessed hunger for as much Carlo Meriano as I can get my hands on.
Now I know what B Spears was talking about in her "gimme gimme more, gimme more, gimme gimme more" song, NOT dick or drugs, but perhaps Carlo Meriano? - Music She Blogged
Toronto singer and onetime Andrew W.K. tour mate Carlo Meriano performs at The Painted Lady to celebrate the release of his new album, Sticka Ikebana.
Meriano claims Elliott Smith, Johnny Cash, The Magnetic Fields and the Twilight Zone as influences on his music. Here's his song, Happy Destroyer. - Now
Review- “Sticka Ikebana”- Carlo Meriano
Posted on December 13, 2011 by glasspaperweight
reviewed by Michael
Though Carlo Meriano is said to have a strong folk sensibility it would be hard to call Sticka Ikebana a folk record. Rather, it’s a multi-genre piece of work that includes the folk element of storytelling. There’s so much going on musically (and lyrically) in most of the songs that it’s basically impossible to neatly categorize.
Stories are really what make up Meriano’s songs. And of course, with these stories come a lot of very memorable lyrics. My favourite, being the Radiohead fan that I am, was a line in “To Serve Man” which goes “My computer listens to Radiohead’s Ok Computer when it’s all alone.”
What’s also great about this album is how far Meriano obviously pushes himself to his limits. A prime example is in the second track “Happy Destroyer” where Meriano, with his light raspy voice, pushes his vocals into a raspy falsetto as he sings lyrics like “Your body is a cancer/Your hero is a joker.” This vocal experimentation is also present in “A Gift from the Sewers” which only adds to the song’s initially creepy vibe.
Onto some specifics about songs. “Plan B” turned out to be one of my favourite tracks, due to the character in the song wanting to be a truck driver. He “don’t wanna be no disc jockey or white collar man.” The song also features a righteous harmonica solo that adds a bit of extra soul to the song.
“To Serve Man” is a delightfully strange song about aliens. It has the feel of a song by Beck and features the aforementioned Radiohead lyric as well as “Will the real Martian please stand up?”
The song “Wordplay” is a slightly more simplistic tune at least as far as instruments go- it’s mainly supported by Meriano’s ukulele. Meanwhile, “Cloud City” is an imagery-filled song that sounds at times like incoherent rambling, particularly the line “Shut the fuck up, your talk is math.”
“A Gift From the Sewers” is by far the most bizarre song of them all, taking on several different melodies at several different parts of the song. It also features the somewhat disturbing lyric “What makes a good neo-Nazi?/A dead neo-Nazi.”
Sticka Ikebana is an album that stands out in my mind because of its quirkiness and inability to be categorized. It also features a good amount of support from Toronto musicians such as The Ruby Spirit’s Paige Boy and Mike Walter, formally of Krupke.
Purchase or stream Sticka Ikebana at Carlo Meriano’s Bandcamp page.
Top Tracks: “Plan B”; “Wordplay”; “A Gift From The Sewers”
Rating: Proud Hoot (Really Good) +*swoop* - Grey Owl Point
Discography
Still working on that hot first release.
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Bio
Carlo Meriano wants to tell you a story. It wont have a beginning or an end, and it might be different the next time you hear it, and it might be about temporal paradoxes or about being a truck driver, but it will always be honest. A stranger to music theory, Carlo has been writing songs since childhood as a way to express and make sense of his experiences and emotions, and also because he cant remember the lyrics to other artists songs.
With influences that include Elliott Smith, Johnny Cash, The Magnetic Fields and the creator of the original Twilight Zone television series, Carlo presents a truly unique sound with lyrics that range from collapse and redemption, happiness and fear to the absurd. These songs, written from 2006 to 2010, were born of out of Carlos own life, informed by two years of self destruction followed by two years of rebuilding in his life and his music. Musically, this renewal was clear when Carlo released the Toys are Just EP in 2008, featuring songs written and performed chiefly on a ukulele and a toy electronic guitar purchased at Value Village for $4.99. Based on the strength of that EP and Carlos often frenetic live shows, he was invited to tour the East Coast as an opener for Andrew WK.
Following the success of this tour and shows across Ontario, Carlo started writing in earnest; revisiting the music hed written both before and after his most destructive period and recorded a full length album with Dave Plowman, featuring support from several Toronto musicians. Sticka Ikebana is nine track journey through a diverse landscape that is unified by Carlos soulful vocals and jaunty melodies. Layered with guitar, ukulele, lap steel, violin, banjo and even the glockenspiel, Sticka Ikebana has a strong folk heart with country, rock and pop influences.
Carlo Meriano wants to tell you a story.
Are you listening?
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