- Welcome to Daytrotter
- Coffee Boi
- Low Rent / Blue Skies
- Hometown
- Wavy Gravy
Okey Dokey is a phoenix that has risen from the ashes. Born from the remnants of a selection of bands-no-more, this duo (here expanded into a full band) is a match made in Nashville. This band takes everything we like about soul and southern rock and wraps it up in everything we love about indie pop. The backbone of the songs is the soulful grooves and vocal harmonies that lay out the structural ground work which the rest of the band toys with. The two guitars gives space for the instrument to be purely rhythmic in some moments and a lead in others. It makes me think about this question coming around concerning the guitar’s place in modern rock bands. It seems that some people out there are just now coming around to the idea of a guitar acting as a textural instrument rather than just an intricate lead instrument. It goes to show how we can understand more about the guitar’s place in rock when two of them are allowed to be in conversation in a song (alongside an array of keyboards). Songs in this session range from glowing to gritty but are always colorful. They have an undeniable charm to them: they’re danceable and nuanced. The best ones are constantly shifting tempos around and are dotted with little musical surprises and references to old songs. Okey Dokey crafts their aesthetic not just from sounds but from words and images as well. The pink and blue of their album cover and bandcamp are a perfect fit for the guitar tones in the music (if you’re tuned in to that sort of thing). I also found a lot of joy in their song lyrics, and even just the song titles. Songs like “Coffee Boi”, “Wavy Gravy”, and “Low Rent – Blue Skies” all have a similar air to them, a youthful joy that reaches back into boyhood but still confronts all the growing pains that come with leaving it. The lyrics fit it right along with them, the vocal performance being the final piece of the puzzle. They’re holding on to the halcyon moments while bringing that optimism to the present moment.