Take a visit to Luke’s Garage, Delicate Steve’s latest album, and you’ll discover a place where sparks of creativity fly in all directions, where melodies splatter the walls like brightly hued paint, where no idea is too simple, too ingenuous, too full of childlike wonder. The L.A.-via-Jersey guitarist born Steve Marion, whose credits include session work for Amen Dunes, Paul Simon, and Deradoorian, had no grand plan for making it: he would simply book some time at a friend’s studio and play. He’s always allowed intuition to guide him, composing his jubilantly tuneful instrumentals as he records them, but this time, he felt freer than ever to “keep the seams showing, and don’t polish everything, and keep it raw, and alive, and electric-feeling,” he says. He chose the title, Luke’s Garage, as a tribute to his pal and sometime collaborator Luke Temple, but also for the anything-goes adolescent innocence it conjured: the feeling of heading over to a buddy’s house, turning up the amps, and creating your own world.
In the world of Luke’s Garage, a passage of music that feels like a sketch in progress might open into a hook so finely wrought, so obviously right, that you have a hard time believing you haven’t heard it before. There are songs that feel destined to soundtrack memories of road trips, and those more suited to moments of hushed intimacy. A shadowy synth-pop excursion (“Light of the World”) veers into a candlelit soul ballad (“Shall Be Free”); a chugging garage-rocker (the title track, naturally) sets up an unexpected detour into slinky disco (“There Goes My Baby”). Delicate Steve’s unmistakable sensibility, his tone airy yet tactile, his lines full of poignant bends and whimsical asides, is a benevolent guide through the ever-shifting landscape, keeping a steady hand on the wheel no matter the surroundings. He has little interest in showing off, focusing instead on clarity, simplicity, and directness—more like an openhearted pop songwriter than a look-what-I-can-do shredder.
Marion played every instrument on Luke’s Garage himself—guitars, drums, keys, bass. The album’s sense of music as a colorful playground for exploration may remind you of Paul McCartney’s early solo work, made at a time when he was shrugging off the weight of expectation and digging into his own idiosyncrasy, tinkering alone until he found a sound that made him feel and trusting it would do the same for others. As with the McCartney, this record’s air of easy spontaneity belies serious craftsmanship and care: the arcing melody of “We’ll Be Friends” and the quietly hopeful one of “Die With It” didn’t just come out of thin air, no matter how natural or even preordained they may seem. To hear Marion tell it, the audible joy in his music isn’t some affect he’s choosing to put on, but an honest expression of his own delight and relief when he finally finds the right note or rhythm. The prevailing mood of Luke’s Garage is one of discovery, because you’re hearing Marion discover the music himself.
