ViennaCC is Back With New Music

There are a number of reasons to take ViennaCC seriously as a budding musical force. His willingness to tackle any lyrical material that catches his attention sets him apart from a bevy of peers and contemporaries willing to rehash ad nauseum. His sound certainly sets him apart. He blends an assortment of disparate influences into an improbable whole with one foot in pop and another in rock without ever pandering for listener’s favor. “Cook for Me” from his EP The Sun Comes Out embodies those strengths while also boasting audible evidence of his boundless potential. 

Some listeners may struggle to reconcile him citing artists such as Deep Purple and Hendrix as primary influences with the song’s sound. Firstly, no one track will ever be representative of this songwriter’s style. It’s clear to me ViennaCC has the necessary stylistic flexibility to cover a wide gamut of approaches while retaining a core consistency. His music and songwriting are identifiable. He has an obvious common frame of reference with other artists, but he’s working in territory that’s all his own. 

I hear that common frame of reference in instrumentation such as the keyboards, the song’s essentially traditional structure, and the vocal arrangement. He tweaks each of these respective commonalities, however, but never to an unrecognizable degree. Melody is important, as it is in all of his work, and comes from multiple sources. 

The vocal melody has an original quality, but it never sounds distant from our personal experience. Even with his accent, it meshes well with the conventional instruments though they, likewise, are employed in distinctive fashion. Keyboards take on a critical role in the song’s development and provide yet another melodic dimension to an already memorable composition. They have a big place in the song mix without ever overwhelming listeners. 

The material is delivered with a nudge and a wink. It’s really quite impossible for me to take a song at 100% face value when the lyrics express a point of view like this track does; I conclude that either it’s a songwriter who is trying to create a character or else deliberately provoking certain segments of their audience. It’s clear to me there’s a lot of ViennaCC in these words, he’s that sort of artist, but it’s equally clear that this performer isn’t penning literal autobiography as well and to hear it as such misses out on a lot. 

He comes across as a songwriter possessing a boundless imagination. Melodies seem to occur naturally during this song, unrolling out of every passage, every refrain. ViennaCC cites icons such as Jimi Hendrix and Deep Purple as models and, superficially, it’s hard to hear why. Pay closer attention though and you can’t help but notice how much of the song is built around percussive riffing. It’s keyboards and electric piano carrying the day, yes, not guitar, but the concept remains the same. It’s odd, one of a kind, and endlessly fascinating. You’ll likely want to return to “Cook for Me” numerous times searching out what you may have missed. 

Mindy McCall