Through the upheavals, exoduses and embraces of perpetual change in the face of the incessant parade of unprecedented events ⁠— we find ourselves investigating the archives of media and arts up close. Finishing the books we always meant to finish. Binging on the original shows that inspired their ubiquitous serial reboots. Exploring the canonical pieces of cinema lavished with troves of accolades. Digging through the bins and cubbies of underappreciated artists and overlooked albums from the latter day decades of the twentieth century. Replaying the long lost grooves of a record played ad nauseum by an older sibling, to mom’s favorite minivan jam cassettes to the contents of dusty crates left in the Goodwill donation piles by aunts, uncles and grandparents. In a time prior to the Y2K fuss and frenzies, where doe eyed denizens with their eyes fixed upon the lofty Top 40s countdowns of credibility ruled the airwaves; the energy was electric and elegant. The hope high. The heartbreak omnipresent on the flipside of every soul-bleating ballad of untethered bombast. From sailboat saturated sentiments of woozy extended-holiday weekends, to the hum of the heartland and over the top electric guitar solos; these AM radio rockers and smooth rollers exalted the elusive cult of edifying the essence of romanticism and all of its corresponding conceits.

Total Slacker’s Tucker Rountree presents a study in these modernist arts with the debut of “Talk is Cheap”. Featured off the forthcoming album ExtraLife, Rountree performs and curates all involved instrumentation, vocal delivery and production to resemble the style of radically retro radio transmissions played through a handheld transistor radio. As explored in our premiere of previous single “Dried Up Well”, Tucker’s fourth album ExtraLife focuses on the worlds of flux (as well as those resistant change) in the face of unstoppable inertia and the calculus of other forms of rapidly evolving physics. In the heat of these shifts, the tonal movement of the Total Slacker enterprise becomes one that resurrects the reels of yesterday’s forgotten heroes from the working class Joes and Janes to the MOR oceanside captains of cool summer breeze faring seas.

"Talk is Cheap" is time trip from somewhere between the early to mid-80s era of new romantic kings & queens. “Lyrically its a moment in time wherein a youth falls in love during a summer affair but one of them realizes that they both are not in love,” Tucker describes, “The unrequited romantic quickly finds themself caught in cliched struggle of continuing the illusion.” With visuals aspiring for vintage MTV play with a public access charm, Rountree can be seen taking the big passionate ballad to the tennis courts to stunting about a park fountain. The verses gently mull about the involved emotive quandaries before bursting with the carefully crafted choruses that ultimately erupt into a cavalcade of power chords and keys. “The song has an interesting dynamic shift from the sparse verse sections, to the harmonically dense chorus sections that have up to 20 tracks with an array of different instruments and analogue synths.” “Talk is Cheap” is a love letter to that turning point in pop music where established soft rock 70s singer-songwriters realized that they could make full on anthems. Total Slacker partakes in that grand tradition of preserving those matters of the heart in sacred song that celebrates the feelings involved with big production pieces of unrestrained expressionism.

Total Slacker’s anticipated album ExtraLife will be available soon.