In a piece for Milwaukee Magazine in early 2011, Christina Daglas laid out an interesting contradiction: The jokey alternative-pop duo Chester French at the time were one of the most prominent, successful bands with proud Milwaukee ties (singer D.A. Wallach lived here and went to UWM), yet nobody in Milwaukee seemed to care about them. Sadly the piece is no longer online, but it did an excellent job detailing the culture clash between the Harvard-educated Wallach and Milwaukee, a city too small for his industry ambitions that, quite frankly, didn’t seem to want him anyway.
Nearly five years later, Wallach is still doing alright for himself. Chester French is finished, but he’s still the artist in residence for Spotify and, as his press material tells it at least, he’s a bit of a mogul in the making, investing in and advising a number of tech companies. And he still hangs with Pharrell, one of several industry names (including James Fauntleroy and go-to industry hands Diane Warren and Dan Wilson) who contributed credits to his new solo album, Time Machine.
The piano-heavy record marks a shift from the bratty pop of Chester French toward a more classic pop sound, inspired particularly by Paul McCartney’s ballads and ’70s songwriters like James Taylor and Elton John. Whether it moves you will depend on your tolerance for its ultra-slick production and Wallach’s boyish voice, which is usually pushed to the front of the mix. Some might find it disarming; others cloying. And while Wallach deserves some credit for picking a lane and following through with it this time—Chester French sometimes seemed to be trying to be all things to all frat boys—I’m not going out on too far of a limb when I predict that this won’t be the album that suddenly earns him legions of attention in Milwaukee.
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You can stream the album below via Spotify (of course) and stream the Tyler, The Creator-directed video for “Glowing” below.
