“Reservoir Park“
from the album She’s the Dutchess, He’s the Duke
2008
iTunes
Although their pairing under their current moniker is relatively new, The Dutchess and the Duke’s Jesse Lortz and Kimberly Morrison briefly made music together as part of Seattle’s The Sultanas. As new introductions go, “Reservoir Park” is a bleak one — an almost archetypal lament, a song that could be 30 years old and might just as well hold up for another 30. Over shuffling rhythm and bristling guitar, Lortz’s narrator details a grim day: “I barely woke this morning on the cold ground by the sea,” he begins. Things don’t exactly improve: He searches for an absent God, is confronted by a rooting malaise, repeatedly returns to contemplate the ominous clouds looming above his head. In the end, he seeks answers about his future and is told, “You ain’t got no future/ You ain’t ever growing old.”
The vocals call and respond, the guitar bursts in at the right times, and the loose percussion drives things forward. If the overall form is essentially classic, the details are what make it unique. Lortz’s dry vocals hail from an outsider’s tradition: a punk rock snarl and a barely restrained frustration impossible to contain in auxiliary spaces. Counterpointing him is Morrison, who brings a fullness to the lines she sings, a lost and entirely melodic sensibility that seems more ’70s California than ’60s Detroit. And as bare-bones as the song’s recording may immediately seem, the studio is used deftly: Lortz’s voice layers atop itself for critical lines, while Morrison’s harmonies serve as both balance and foil. The song crackles as it goes, but it’s the deftness of its construction that makes repeat listens so rewarding.