At some point in recent-ish music history, the concept of “genre” was put out to pasture. Why constrain yourself to just one musical style, many emerging artists asked, when you could embrace all of them? Like the once precious idea/worry of “selling out,” genre seems like a thing of the past.
Enter Milwaukee’s Shontrail, an artist who has spent the first half of the ’20s embracing, discarding, and fusing together genres at will. Shontrail hit the local scene as a rapper in 2018; four years later, he made a pivot to dreamy indie-rock. Full-length albums like 2022’s Silver Star and 2023’s Lost In Limbo followed, complete with irresistible singles like “Red Rabbit” and “When I’m Alone I Get Real High.”
Now comes Sonata. The record is both a refinement of Shontrail’s dream-pop direction and a grab-bag of genre-defying sketches. Eight songs fly by in 15 minutes: There’s downright lovely opener “Can You Catch Me?” and hazy follow-up “Thru The Rafters,” both filled with reverb-drenched guitars and chugging drum machines. (“Rafters” features vocals from frequent Shontrail collaborator Sam Whitten.) There’s the low-fi industrial grit of “Ghoul City” and the equally raw and frantic “Solo,” both sporting contributions from Slide Bath. There’s the neon-drenched and breathless “GTA Freestyle.” There’s the chilled-out comedown combo of “Back Seat” and “By Your Side,” the latter an acoustic mantra beamed in from an alternate Bon Iver universe.
And yes, there’s closer “Hanging Out With Donna,” a bedroom-pop cover/reworking of “In The Street,” a.k.a. the theme song to That ’70s Show. Does Sonata hold together despite its occasional left turns and left-field covers? Thanks to Shontrail’s knack for arresting vocals and melodies, it absolutely does. Listen to it now, genre be damned.
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