Stubai Post “Voyager” Video; EP Out Now, Album Coming Soon
While the arrangements are full-band in terms of featuring guitar, bass, drums and the like, Stubai‘s recently-issued four-song Voyager EP carries solo-project intimacy to coincide with its outward accessibility — bedroom pop working from foundations that resonate in frequencies of grunge on a cut like “Broken Teeth” and progressive heavy emo on the leadoff title-track, the video for which you’ll find streaming below. The “Voyager” clip features artist-impression footage of and actual images taken by NASA’s two Voyager probes — Voyager 1 and 2, launched in Sept. and Aug. 1977, respectively (yes, two before one) — which are the farthest-out manmade objects in the cosmos, having left much of the sun’s gravity and certainly all the planets, Kuiper Belt, etc. behind. Voyager 1 is now over 15 billion miles away from the sun, and Voyager 2 is 13 billion. Not bad for pre-’80s technology.
Stubai, which is comprised of Matt T., is slightly more modern in influence, what with the ’90s-ism of “Another Way” and the particularly-Nirvana strum and drawl of the aforementioned “Broken Teeth,” as well as the early-Cave In vibe that “Voyager” itself is radiating. Thoughtful in melody and wistful even unto the dancier sway of capper “Do You Miss Me,” the EP is intended as a precursor to Stubai‘s debut full-length, We Were Here, set to release sometime this Fall. I haven’t heard that yet, but the songs feel crafted and fluid in like measure, and while the production is hardly flashy, it is clear and able to convey a due sense of breadth to suit the thicker-toned distortion being explored in “Voyager” itself.
You’ll note the final among the video’s snagged images is the famous image of Earth as viewed from roughly six billion miles out christened by astronomer Carl Sagan as the ‘Pale Blue Dot.’ It is a fitting and humbling reminder of our place in the cosmos itself, which is practically nowhere at all when put to even the tiniest fraction of such a scale. Ephemeral as we are, we nonetheless persist with things like art (yay) and war (boo), and the Voyager EP harnesses an urgency of expression that speaks of reaching out in a way to suit the stated theme of learning about humanity through the gold records on the Voyager probes containing information about the human species, the planet and our culture. If you want a more terrestrial interpretation, it’s also catchy with a hook to get stuck in your head and a flowing riff. Up to you how you want to look at it, ultimately.
My daughter, The Pecan, is deep into wanting to be an astrophysicist when she grows up, and, well, that’d be just fine. I showed her the video and we ended up watching it four times that day. When I put it on a bit ago to start writing about the EP, she remembered it on the basis of the song alone, came over, and sat down with me in front of the laptop to watch again. It isn’t the first song she’s liked, but it is the first one I’ve heard her say she liked. Ever. Not a minor or easily earned endorsement.
Enjoy:
Stubai, “Voyager” official video
Streaming: https://www.submithub.com/link/stubai-music
Stubai has written a fuzzed out stoner rock epic about NASA’s 1977 Voyager probes. It comes with a music video that takes the viewer on a cinematic journey through the solar system (shoutout to V101 Science for the awesome footage).
Voyager wonders how aliens might perceive us humans if they actually listened to the sounds on the probes’ famous Golden Records.
Strap yourself in and take a trip to the heliosphere and beyond!
NASA space probe Voyager’s journey through the solar system.
Footage used with kind permission of @V101SPACE
Edited by: Oscar Teffer
Music: “Voyager” from Stubai’s forthcoming debut album “We Were Here”, out October 2024
