Stef Chura's 'Dancing Alone on the Concrete' Is a Grand, Steady-Handed Masterpiece of Athens Craft
The credits on Dancing Alone on the Concrete read like a dare. Robert Schneider of The Apples in Stereo produced it. It was recorded at Chase Park Transduction in Athens, Georgia, and mixed there by David Barbe and Andy LeMaster. Joe Lambert mastered. Scott Spillane of Neutral Milk Hotel appears; John Fernandes of The Olivia Tremor Control plays on “Babydoll”; Peter Buck and Mike Mills show up on “Danny.” Nine songs. No filler, because there’s no room for any.
The Sonic Breakdown
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: Barbe and LeMaster mixing in the same room the record was tracked in is the whole advantage — the rhythm section, with Ryan Clancy on drums, sits in the mix rather than on top of it. “Thunder and Lightning” was cut elsewhere, at Casa de LeMaster with extra tracking at Toy Piano Studio in New Orleans, and you can hear it sit slightly apart in the sequence, in a good way.
The Spatial Dynamics: Paste noted the record “sounds grander than Chura’s previous albums,” and the grandeur is structural, not cosmetic. Schneider gives the arrangements genuine depth of field on “Leadweight” and “The Concrete” without burying the guitar that made people care about her in the first place.
Standout Performance
Chura’s own voice. Bandcamp Daily’s Jennifer Kelly put her finger on the shift: “There’s less gulp and bristle in her voice, more diva-esque belting.” On “Danny” — the one with the R.E.M. pair — Kelly found that “the biggest sign of maturity is not the change in instruments or tempo, but that Chura sings from a position of strength.”
Why It’s Certified
Kelly’s verdict was that the album “puts the weight of experience into its songs,” and that’s the thing records like this usually fumble. Experience tends to arrive as caution. Here it arrives as nerve: nine songs, world-class personnel, and a singer who finally sounds like she knows she’s the reason they all showed up.