David Brusie is a writer and musician based in Boston, where he generally lives a rock 'n' roll lifestyle with his wife and their two cats. Originally from Acton, Massachusetts, David produced his record Flyover State while living in Minneapolis, Minnesota for five years.
David is also a regular contributor to the site Music (for Robots) — co-founded by Brusie in 2004 — and his reviews, interviews, and essays have appeared in The Onion, City Pages, Tiny Mix Tapes, and Vita.MN.
David Brusie returns with his second record, Flyover State, which resonates with the same folk fragility and pop sensibilities that made his debut a fan favorite. The new album possesses incredible breadth, showcasing short, classic folk-pop gems.
More than anything else, the album highlights David’s evolution as an artist. Recording started in the fall of 2006, though many of the songs were written in late 2004 and early 2005, shortly after his father passed away and David was in the midst of a cross-country move with his wife. As he wrote songs about his dad’s passing, it was clear that much of the record would focus on loss and the mourning process itself. It also became clear that some songs ("Spaceman" and "Everything Is Different," for example) had nothing whatsoever to do with death, resulting in an incredibly personal album with universal flourishes and touches of unexpected humor.
A major theme of this record is dislocation, both physically and mentally. The American Midwest is vastly different from the small town New England of David’s youth, and arriving there so soon after his father's death had a profound impact. Despite the circumstances, the experience wasn’t entirely negative, and writing these songs in Minnesota was a great exercise. Accordingly, many of these songs sound vastly different from what David’s written before both in subject matter and overall production.
Drummer Jesse Fox and bassist Simon Hutchinson, who David knew from college, provide the rhythm section on Flyover State. They recorded their parts from afar – Simon in Tokyo and Jesse in Portland, Oregon - and ended up making changes that were integral to the final songs. In the chorus of "Fort Wayne," for example, Jesse cuts the rhythm in half, slowing things down a bit. David hadn't planned on this, but he admits it was a huge improvement. Producer Josh Baesler, a professional singer and musician, also made significant contributions to songs.
Flyover State is not to be missed.
David has performed at the following venues in Massachusetts and Minnesota:
- The Druid - Cambridge, MA
- All Asia - Cambridge, MA
- The Squealing Pig - Boston, MA
- Wilde Roast - Minneapolis, MN
- 331 Club - Minneapolis, MN
- Acadia Cafe - Minneapolis, MN
- The Beat - Minneapolis, MN
- Bryant-Lake Bowl - Minneapolis, MN
- Java Jack's - Minneapolis, MN
- Clubhouse Jager - Minneapolis, MN
Find out about upcoming shows by joining the email list. Sign up on the home page.
For those of us packed into the tightly nestled city blocks of Cambridge, Boston and all its outlying areas, places with names such as "Fort Wayne" [mp3] are distant rumors. How, then, will Mr. Brusie bring us the ideas and the essence of Fort Wayne in song?
Make no mistake - he will. It is in the arrangement that "Fort Wayne" really takes the listener on a bona fide trip. The sunny guitars and wide-open rhythms evoke the mental image of big skies, wide-open spaces and the speed and spirit needed to traverse such spaces. Brusie's vocals are easy-going yet peppy, sticking with the major intervals in the scale, thus imparting an overly pleasant spirit.
This song has two gears, the highway of the verse and then the stop-time of the chorus, with simple tonic notes ticking away the quarter notes like a turn signal before Brusie spins the wheel and brings us back out into the great wide open, speeding along long, straight roads.
Boston Band Crush, a blog about Boston music and the people who make it
This town is lousy with good young songwriters at the moment, and after only one introductory listen, this guy is one of the best.
It was difficult to hear him last night over the wine-and-dessert crowd at the Wilde Roast, but talent floats. And it occured to me as I sat in front of a cozy autumn fire -- alone on the couch and alone in my listening -- that good songs also make good background music.
With the hub-hub of wi-fiers and first dates and chatter (and, from what I could see, not a single friend/fan of the singer's), it was not unlike the Ani DiFranco song, "Asking Too Much," where she snaps to attention to the hum of her potential lover and says, "What did you just say?," as if she can't believe another soul just reiterated a part of her she didn't even know was alive. That is: A song can be anything you want it to be, and never more so than when you're half-hearing it.
This coming from the Good Listening Scold. This coming from a guy who has spent his entire life believing that singers and songs should be paid their due reverence, and here I was last night, accepting of the loudmouths and music-impaired and digging the missed lyrics, faint melodies, and a Mountain-Sufjan-Goats voice that harmonized so naturally with the clanks and whirrs of the bustling kitchen and espresso machines. Brusie never flinched.
A Boston transplant, he's the real deal: Brimming with heart and heartache and the kind of musical chops and quiet confidence that gets unearthed alone in the woodshed, and honed in joints that serve up indifference with the Chai Tea. The fact that Brusie's songs are still unreleased will change, and soon, because his days when the rest of us only half-listen are numbered.
David Brusie writes great songs with real emotional depth; unique, too; his record is the kind of record you keep listening to over and over, getting new things from it each time.
Felix McTeigue, Rusty Muffler Records Recording Artist, on Half-Extravaganza
David Brusie follows ably in the steps of Beck and Elliott Smith, mixing folk, punk and pop but never at the expense of a great melody.
Mark Erelli, Signature Sounds Recording Artist