Who could criticize Melina Duterte for opting out of enrolling in a jazz conservatory, making a quick study of music production, and instead focusing on her own songwriting. She may not have a fancy diploma framed on her wall, but she’s got two acclaimed records already under the moniker of Jay Som.
Duterte is D.I.Y. incarnate, a one-woman band who writes her own songs and plays all the instruments on her Jay Som recordings. With one foot in the bedroom (“Remain”), the other in the garage (“Take It”), and a borrowed limb planted in more experimental terrain (“One More Time, Please”), The album “Everybody Works” showcases a young, multifaceted songwriter who can shift between gritty and vulnerable aesthetics without so much as raising her voice. And when all those elements coalesce, we’re left with a breakup tune like “The Bus Song”, as insightful as it is impossible not to hum between stops
“Lipstick Stains” drifts in and out of focus with washes of acoustic guitar and horns providing ballast to Melina Duterte’s scene-setting sentiment, the word “stains” contrasting with “smile.” Then the album kicks off with what remains my most listened to song of the year so far. I can’t properly articulate just how much the softly-sung “Take your time” does to me; how “Feel like a firefighter when I take off your shoes” and “My sister knows / She says that ghosts are real” evokes nostalgia in me for memories that I didn’t think I held on to. But I can articulate the other stuff, how the instruments come alive to Duterte threatening to cut through the knots, or the effectiveness of the stop-starts throughout.
“But I Like The Bus” remains one of the best musical moments of the year, or how “Why don’t we take the bus? / You say you don’t like the smell” recalls Ricky Roma’s fantastic speech in David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, or the sentiment that Duterte enjoys public transit because “I can be whoever I want to be.” Unpretentious and thoroughly enjoyable indie pop/rock; expertly crafted. Nothing on the album comes close to it, even though there are moments: the vulnerable way she sings the vulnerable lyric, “There’s nothing up my sleeves”, on “Remain”; the guitar solo of 1990s love letter, “1 Billion Dogs,” before eventually settling in the bounce of the main hook.
The Fat Angel Sings 