February 2026 AOTM

Ritt Momney - BASE


Tracks 12

Runtime 30mins

Favorite Tracks I'DDO, DOG, CAT, IF, LOVE AROUND YOU

 

A good bedroom pop record needs a certain tenderness. To make a good bedroom pop record you don’t sing or speak or play the music, you exhale. And Ritt Momney’s first full length album in 5 years is a very good bedroom pop record. 

The solo project of Salt Lake City based singer-songwriter Jack William Rutter, BASE is whispered breathlessly on your shoulder, soaking through the skin of your neck. It lies on the bed next to you as the winter gasps its last breaths in snow and wind and rain just outside the window. 

The production is deceptively thin at first. The vocals are airy with tight resonance, the drums are snappy, lofi, almost small sounding. But it hums to its own tune. Sometimes in balmy basslines, sometimes in the rumble of downtuned acoustic guitar strings, and sometimes even in the hiss that hangs in the background, the not quite silence of a not quite empty house. 

Fans of slowcore rock band Duster will find themselves in a very familiar place with this album. Tracks like LIGHTSHOW and THE TANK feature those same muffled guitars and impossible softness. The rest of the album never strays too far from bedroom as a concept, but it takes so many different approaches, nodding to so many other influences and styles. Toy-like synth riffs bring a hint of Jack Stauber playfulness, the bossa nova rhythm and guitar on BODY calls back to ¿Téo?’s earlier work. But the most interesting thing about BASE is the way vocals are used. 

The vocals are mostly not used as a centerpiece. Double layered and floating they become an instrument of their own. But when they step forward it creates some of the most memorable moments on the whole album. DOG begins with just a faraway piano, accompanied by very close vocals, as if singing from just behind you. But the vocals build and build, Lindsay Lloyd providing a high harmony, the song no longer a tentative whisper, as if a door opened. 

But the highlight of the album isn’t this track, its sister is.

CAT is nothing but vocals and vocoded harmony. The spiritual successor to Imogen Heap’s Hide and Seek, the vocode chords hit a much lower register. Ritter’s melody writing stands alone rumbling and whirling with a pulse you’ve already heard a little bit in the background of other songs, but here in full strength dose. It sends endorphins down your spine every time in ice cold stinging rushes. 

It’s been a long winter. Its final screaming death throes have lasted just a little too long, causing me and those around me to go a little bit crazy. Everything feels more hostile than it was two months ago. BASE is 30 minutes of pure bedroom pop perfection, a psychedelic break from it all, as you sink into the sheets. 


Other Albums from this month I enjoyed

Hemlocke Springs - the apple tree under the sea

  • Hemlocke Springs' long awaited debut album brings more of her unique eclectic pop style, lush with 80s style synth work, off kilter vocals, and composition so rich you can get lost in it. Absolutely a must listen for any high-brow pop fan.

Carpenter Brut - Leather Temple

  • Another blood and neon fuled Darksynth and cyber metal album from Carpenter Brut. Perfect music for fans of games like DOOM, Hotline Miami, or ULTRAKILL.

Hällas - Panorama

  • This album sounds like it was pulled straight from the 70s its a real treat to hear a band emulate that early prog rock style so well.

Ronker - Respect The Hustle, I Won't Be Your Dog Forever

  • Adrenaline fuled noise rock. Kinda sounds like if Amyl & the Sniffers were evil. Also one of the coolest album cover and title combinations I've seen in a long time.