As hard as it is to fathom in this golden age of mass consumption, some truly great albums still manage to slip through the cracks. That, or they were once adored but end up buried deep within the figurative record pile and have since been neglected. These are the records we hope to spotlight with our From the Vault series, and I can’t imagine a more appropriate album than I Was Submerged, the debut (and only) record released by the Carter Tanton-fronted band Tulsa in 2007.
Before continuing, let’s address what you’re probably wondering: Tulsa isn’t actually from Tulsa, nor is the band even from Oklahoma. They’re actually from Boston, and their name was culled from a book consisting of black-and-white photography by Tulsa native Larry Clark (including the shot that graces the above album artwork). If Clark’s name sounds familiar, you probably know him as the director of the 1995 visceral cult flick Kids, a collaboration with acclaimed filmmaker Harmony Korine. Released in 1971, Tulsa was his first published work, and much like his most notorious film, the photography follows the lives of adolescents engaging in an array of deviant activities: shooting up, playing with guns, having sex. Clark’s early shots were lauded and repudiated in equal measure, yet they also proved influential to many, including directors Gus Van Sant, Martin Scorcese, and the three Bostonians in Tulsa.
I Was Submerged isn’t a direct thematic extension of Clark’s photographs, though its spacey, guitar-driven brand of Americana is shrouded beneath a similarly murky cloak. Its guitar twangs don’t comfort; they muddle. The percussion is fervid and steady, and Tanton’s reverb-doused vocals envelope the songs in an impassioned malaise. Much like Neil Young’s most stirring material, many of these tracks combat the “southern rock” label with feelings of delirium and desolation, a timbre established from the very first chord. Opener “Breathe Thin” builds a steady tension through a subtly hypnotic minor chord progression — until its hair-raising climax erupts in a fit of guitar-pierced wrath. It’s the album’s first and biggest “holy shit” moment, and while subsequent songs don’t necessarily eclipse this high, the songwriting is consistently magnetic throughout.
Some have compared Tulsa’s sound to the early work of contemporary country-rock torchbearers My Morning Jacket and Band of Horses. And while the parallels do exist, neither of those bands embody the same degree of existential panic found here, as Tanton pulls just as much (if not more) from In Utero as he does American Beauty. It sounds gloomy — and it is to a certain degree — but like Nirvana, Tulsa never let its darker subject matter interfere with plainspoken melody, and that’s what makes them such a uniquely riveting listen.
Tulsa disbanded shortly after the album’s largely overlooked release. Tanton went on to release some solo material a few years back and most recently performed with likeminded Baltimore indie-rock act Lower Dens. Yet the legacy he left behind with I Was Submerged subsists to this day, echoing through the same wispy forest leaves seen in its cover’s striking photography.
