Life With Dick is the new album by Grace Sings Sludge (The Sandwitches, The Fresh and Onlys). It’s the continuation of a world Grace Cooper began illustrating as one of the lead songwriters of the San Francisco band The Sandwitches, and on her previous three collections of solo home recordings (released as limited run cassette tapes). As with the other solo albums, Cooper does the artwork for the album. Her delicate yet disturbing pen and watercolor creations are the perfect accompaniment to her songs, as though they’ve emerged from the same troubled dreams. Though understated, a sense of urgency permeates this record. Cooper’s voice dances through the songs with a chameleon quality that’s sultry and commanding on “In Spite of Doom” and desperate, vulnerable and sharp on “Can’t Play” and “Everlasting Arms.” Her lyrics contain the weariness of giving in to a love requited, and the unsettling realities of maintaining that love. In some pieces it seems she no longer knows where to direct her endless yearning. She observes on “Bad Timing Pt. 2”: “Two boats they don’t meet up in the night, they glide by each other and forever out of sight... they might just be the lucky ones.” The spookiness of Cooper’s sound—a sound influential in some of The Sandwitches’ best songs like ”Joe Says” and “In the Garden”—is still present here and especially on the darker second side. Piercing guitars and heartbeat drums on “Everlasting Arms” warn that “something’s growing in the basement” and something comes “from within.” The recording quality of this release is raw but it is far from being a “garage record.” It is a recording brought down from the attic, with no date and with no intended audience, and is best listened to alone.
