Well I Asked You A Question

Since writing 2022's The Consistent Brutal Bullshit Gong, Market’s Nate Mendelsohn has become more entrenched in the Brooklyn, NY music community, producing the recent Frankie Cosmos and Dougie Poole albums, performing in Vagabon and Sam Evian, and recording with Yaeji and Lady Lamb. These experiences with adventurous artists likely resonate with fans of records like Pet Sounds, Fantasma, Insignificance, Blonde, or XO. Well I Asked You A Question's aforementioned sonic palette wonderfully melds the physical and the synthetic: sampled orchestras duel with real orchestras (“Fantasy”), a robot’s spoken word duets with a choir of humans (“Around”), and blasts of noise “solo” over traditional rock instrumentation (“Rachel’s Getting Married”).

Though many of the sounds on the record are augmented and fractured, Mendelsohn still worked with the Market band, consisting of Stephen Becker, Natasha Bergman, and Duncan Standish, to build out the songs.

He wanted “musical accidents with frayed edges left in still a group of people, in a room, playing songs.” Beyond the core band, world-expanding contributions came from Katie von Schleicher, Mike Haldeman (Moses Sumney, Alto Palo), Justin Felton (L’Rain, Strugglin’), Rose Droll (Feist, Art Feynman) and Helen Newby with engineering by Adam Hirsch (Sam Amidon, Stephen Steinbrink).

Well I Asked You a Question is ambitious and complex, but Mendelsohn tempers those goals by aiming at heart, toward the very human. Lyrically, it’s an exploration of speaking, asking, responding and the muddled nature of talking to one’s self versus interacting with others. In his words, he’s alternately “escaping the noise of the world by going inward” and “escaping the noise of the brain by going outward.” Whether swaddled in sound or absorbing the errant thoughts it carries, we’re along for the ride.

“...conjures up the spirit of stuff like Neutral Milk Hotel. I think it’s very rare to find indie songs that can really... bring out certain emotions in you the way this one does. It makes you feel melancholic but also optimistic at the same time. Very special.”
JAMES ACASTER via THE NEEDLE DROP.

1. Well I Asked You A Question
2. Apple
3. Around
4. Sertraline
5. Water Spilling Test
6. Rachel Getting Married
7. Fantasy
8. Bigger Problem
9. On The Bar
10. Reason To Shout