A delightfully tight soul-pop single has just been dropped by Joe Kenney and Ethan Stauffer, and it has been putting a smile on our faces for hours now, for a plethora of reasons. ‘Go’ is just the dopamine booster that your dreary day might have been calling for.
Philadelphia native Joe Kenney and his co-conspirator Ethan Stauffer are both members of the jam/prog rock outfit The Proper Hustlers, so that must mean they both know a thing or two about musical complexity, interweaving rhythms and juxtapositioned melodies, and other lengthy terms. So, leaning back to music’s oldest chord change, the well-trusted IV to I, means that the duo is here to deliver one thing and one thing only… Soul. Indeed, the duo’s latest release, the gorgeous ‘Go’, is based on a handful of music’s simplest ideas. Straight-to-heart progressions, easy listening melodies, a soft-and-bright production job, and a deep, floating groove –‘Go’ is an extremely easy song to fall for.
With meaningful lyrics and bright, colorful cover art about a fantastical 5-cent therapy session, ‘Go’ is wonderfully crafted to be soft on the senses. Indeed, the stellar soul piano, the bustling rhythm guitar works, and the terrific vocal harmonies are all meticulously crafted at their core, only to serve a greater whole, which is a song that flows just like a gentle stream. A truly masterful bit of songwriting.
Saying that I enjoyed ‘Go’ would be doing this beautiful piece of music a disservice. ‘Go’ is musically tight enough to be compelling and immersive, yet serene enough to be mesmerizing. A wonderful piece of work from the duo.