Blind Pilot’s core is two Portlanders, Israel Nebeker and Ryan
Dobrowski, who play guitar and drums, and who have toured the United
States on their bicycles.
Any duo who can cart around all of their equipment on bicycles
obviously plays stripped-down music; Blind Pilot’s sound is
acoustic-guitar-focused folk-pop, with sparse, quiet drums. But that’s
not all that’s stripped down about Blind Pilot. Many guys can get
together and write sweet little pop songs à la The Shins, but
Blind Pilot’s deep earnestness and captivating melodies lend their
music a certain intoxicating romanticism: They wear their hearts on
their sleeves. Their music is so essentially simple and so immediately
loved by many because of that resonance of bareness, delivered in
lyrical metaphor and chords you could play yourself, drunk and sad on a
Saturday night.
On 3 Rounds and a Sound, Blind Pilot add the occasional
banjo, horn section and string flourish, all of which add just enough
of an artistic touch. The stars of the show here are Nebeker’s vocals
and lyrics. “Your breath was courage laced with alcohol,” sings Nebeker
on “Oviedo,” “you leaned in and said, ‘Make music with the chatter in
here and whisper all the notes in my ear.'”
That is a perfect description of what Blind Pilot does: makes soft
music out of chatter, whispered seductively into your ears.
This article appears in Apr 2-8, 2009.
