White Life is something of a departure for Jon Ehrens, the prolific and chameleonic singer-songwriter previously best known for indie bands like the idiosyncratic Art Department and the lo-fi Repelican. For one of the first times in his career, Ehrens is sharing vocal and production duties on White Life’s self-titled debut, which was recorded with Chris and Mickey Freeland at Beat Babies, and features several lead vocal performances by his sister Emily Ehrens. But more significantly, White Life is a big stylistic left turn for Ehrens into the world of synths, drum machines and unabashedly pop vocal performances.

I Want Love
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The eight songs on White Life’s album, out this week on Ehse Records, each offer different variations on the project’s polished aesthetic and retro sensibility. The closer “I Want Love” is the album’s most overtly R&B track, with a bubbly synth bassline and a euphoric vocal by Emily Ehrens that could pass for an early ’80s boogie classic by Deniece Williams.

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Elsewhere on the album, the ’80s evoked by White Life is more along the lines of brooding synth pop, with Jon Ehrens offering some of the most passionate vocals and nakedly emotional lyrics of his career, which effectively lend a sense of gravity and sincerity to what could otherwise be an exercise in campy, ironic nostalgia. On one of the best tracks in that vein, “Follow,” his staccato verses give way to a chorus. that soars with help from backing harmonies by Jenn Wasner of Wye Oak.

Jon Ehrens is a serial band inventor in the Robert Pollard mode. Just as the Guided By Voices frontman frequently comes up with aliases to release music under, sometimes fashioning unique musical identities and even elaborate fictional backstories, Ehrens constantly records under names like the Hypnic Jerks, Factoid of the Dustbowl, and Spittn’ Images, often just for one album or a few songs, before moving onto the next idea. One of his many solo recording projects, The Art Department, even became a live trio that gigs steadily around Baltimore.

With all the different voices and aesthetics he tries on throughout his different projects, it’s tempting to wonder what the ‘real’ Jon Ehrens sound is. And if there is one, it’s a safe guess to start with Repelican, the name he’s recorded under on and off for 10 years. It quickly becomes clear with one listen to Repelican’s new album, Don’t Mumble The Manifesto, however, that he’s still behind a bit of a sonic mask, whether it’s a dense fog of tape hiss, or an affected singing style that sometimes sounds like a caricature of Bruce Springsteen in rockabilly mode. That’s not to say that he’s hiding his true self, or that it’s all an elaborate put-on; if anything, it’s a confirmation that the lo-fi production and twangy melodies common to so much of Ehrens’s records are simply part of his musical DNA. And where a record by, say, the Art Department might be almost stubbornly dedicated to a specific style from song to song, Repelican benefits highly from a wider swath of tempos and moods.

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The album ends with “Diana,” one of the few tracks that gets past 3 minutes, and easily its most fully formed pop tune, featuring the same hiccupy rockabilly vocal style as much of the rest of the album. But other wise, Don’t Mumble‘s brisk half hour running time is full of distorted classic rock miniatures like “Ripened Horse” that would make Bob Pollard himself proud.