Philadelphia’s Kirby Sybert Makes Happy Things
By Tyler Asay
The first time I encountered Philadelphia-based multi-instrumentalist Kirby Sybert was a show he was playing at Dawson Street Pub about 4 years ago. I remember being impressed that he and his band covered “Roll Tide,” a song from the Dawes record that had JUST come out (We’re All Gonna Die). I remember my girlfriend and I turning to each other since we had just been listening to it earlier that day, and being dumbfounded that an artist was bold enough to cover a song that had just come out. I remember getting up with her and singing along and appreciating the joy that the music brought us in that moment.
That’s one of the main functions of music, right? Bringing joy and happiness to others, and that’s the core of Sybert’s new solo record, Happy People Make Happy Things, which just came out this week. It’s a collection of bountiful folk-rock, in a similar vein to the aforementioned Dawes with the experimental measures of their brother in arms Blake Mills, with touches of 70’s classic and jazz-rock thrown in there too.
The album opens with the previously released single, “Ease Fulfillment” (which we wrote about on The Philadelphia Globe last week), an ode to Sybert’s relationship with the music industry. He has played in several different bands over the years that have existed with varying degrees of success, from touring the country to playing the dingiest rock clubs. It’s the eternal struggle for a musician: Do you keep pushing your art forward in the world for hopes of gratification and acceptance when the forces pushing against you are insurmountable? Sybert’s answer is yes.
I love when a record contains a musical motif. For Happy People Make Happy Things, it’s bookended by “My Maker” and the closing reprise jam featuring Darla/Foxtrot & The Get Down saxophonist Will Schade. The non-instrumental version has Sybert asking, “When my maker comes to greet me will it come as a surprise?” It’s a reckoning with life & death that puts a spin on the title of the record: If we as people/things are “happy,” does that make the cosmic world that created us inherently “happy?” Another question that has been pushed into the light within this endless abyss of a year we call 2020.
While the title of the record paints one kind of picture, the inverse is also true. This record isn’t without its moments of darkness; the swampy “Better Than I Was” is a slinky and gut-sinking fingerpicked number about doubt that flips on itself when Sybert returns with a pitched-down vocal staring at himself in a mirror. “Donny” is a massive minor-key stadium rock jam about talking your friend off the edge of the cliff.
It wouldn’t be a Kirby Sybert record without elements of collaboration. Like previously mentioned, Will Schade shows up on both versions of “My Maker,” and Sybert’s Mo Lowda & The Humble bandmates Shane Woods and Jordan Caiola pop in with lead & harmony vocals on “Winds Of Change,” an anthemic sing-a-long about shifting tides and rolling with the punches. The “Winds Of Change” music video finds Sybert flying over Philadelphia landmarks such as the Kurt Vile mural in Fishtown.
Happy People Make Happy Things is at its best when those moments of pure life-affirming joy break through. The Steely Dan vibe of “Without You” is a wonderful strut layered with classic “love song harmonies,” and “I’ll Be There For You” hits with its communal, end-of-the-party-but-we-had-a-great-night elation. Album centerpiece “This Life” works as a low-key mission statement for the record; “let’s enjoy each other.”
We as human beings all have the capacity to create. It’s in our nature to “make” things, and it was essential to evolution to be able to stay alive. Whether we feel happiness, sadness, frustration, embarrassment, anxiety, or confusion, we will still continue to make things that help us handle those emotions. Music, especially. Sybert’s Happy People Make Happy Things is a testament to those human emotions and doing what makes you happy, even in the face of those forces pushing against you. It’s a reminder to get up and sing along.
Happy People Make Happy Things by Kirby Sybert is out now. Stream it on Spotify below. Kirby Sybert is also the Artist Of The Month at The Philadelphia Globe.
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