New Music: Big Winner – Blissin’ Out

Trust me when I say that Big Winner isn’t tempting fate by releasing his Dinosaur album on the 13th of November. 

And yes, I know it’s bad of me, but Blissin’ Out indicates that the long player is indeed likely to be a big winner with fans of lo-fi indie and slacker pop. You might recognise the vocals; if so, that’s because the Norway-based American musician was known as CHUCK (Charles Griffin Gibson) before life led him to a hiatus from music.

It’s good to have him back, as you’ll quickly be enchanted by the easy domesticity and slice-of-life of the lyrics, brought to life by his down-home vocal style, friendly and confessional. It’s a love song with a wide beam and a lot of heart – partners, kids, cats, Weezer, taking out the trash. That’s all part of what can make life beautiful, but also colour it with sadness, knowing the feelings and memories may last until life takes our memories away, but other things, the micro-moments of daily living, are fleeting.

I was trying to find a good word to sum up the track but couldn’t quite get there. Calling it a memorial is too maudlin; indie-pop is too superficial. I guess, like life itself, I should take it as it comes and love it for that. And maybe living in Norway has put some Scandinavian into his DNA, for as much as Blissin’ Out is lo-fi, it equally has that richness I love so much in bands like Amason, ViVii, and maybe even First Aid Kit.

Dinosaur has been a process for Gibson, who has spent the last few years watching his life change. He’s not ended up back where he was, but in a similar, happier version of it. “In 2019, I was in the process of moving from New York City to Norway with my wife, and I decided it was the right time to stop making music. For me, songwriting is a compulsive behaviour that requires a lot of emotional, mental, and logistical resources. At the time, giving those resources to music didn’t feel healthy anymore. I sold all my equipment before leaving behind the Big Apple and the social anxieties of my 20s.”

“Five years later, I found myself integrated into Scandinavian society with two kids and zero swag. I was an alien in a strange land, cleaning what felt like an endless conveyor belt of oatmeal-stained dirty dishes. I stood at the sink, exhausted, getting lost in thoughts of secret fantasies, lingering regrets, and reflections on my own childhood, which felt like it happened on another planet – back home in the US, a country I still felt deep in my bones, although, as I squinted at it across the Atlantic, I couldn’t really recognize it anymore.”

“One day, I bought a cheap classical guitar from someone in my neighborhood, and before I knew it, new songs started coming. Compulsions die hard. It wasn’t long before I was Big Winner, and I had to start recording the tracks.”

“But I didn’t want to let music take over my life again. So instead of buying a bunch of new gear, I decided to set a limitation on myself: the only physical instruments I was allowed to use on this record were the cheap classical guitar and an egg shaker I got from a Norwegian pop star. To complete the puzzle, I also used MIDI instruments, freelance musicians from Fiverr, and tons of Creative Commons sound effects I found online.”

Says Gibson of the double-edged name of the album, “The title of this record comes from my son’s endearing obsession with dinosaurs, as well as my own feeling of slowly going extinct. Dinosaur is ultimately a record about ping-ponging back and forth between many contradictory feelings: the joy I feel when I’m playing with my kids, the way their eyeballs on me make me hate my bad habits, the hazy nostalgia of remembering my youth back in America, and the creeping realization that my (our?) time is running out.”

You can pre-order Dinosaur via Audio Antihero on Bandcamp, and Blissin’ Out can be streamed on Spotify. Get album updates, and maybe find out more about the sweetly drawn video for the song, over on Instagram.