Best Move Relational Memory

Taking direction from both the cinematic song stylings of sardonic yet unfettered troubadours like Randy Newman, Brian Wilson, and Harry Nilsson and the "visual scoring" of indie pop song placement in 21st-century films, Best Move's music suggests the sound of a decade of winding, disparate avenues finally convening in a perfect center. The Sacramento-based trio is composed of Kris Anaya, Joseph Davancens, and Fernando Olivia. Anaya, a talented songwriter with a penchant for wry, offbeat guitar-based folk-pop songs, and Davancens, who holds higher education degrees in avant-garde composition and jazz double bass, formed the electronic act Doombird together in 2016, but in 2019 the pair gravitated back to what they consider more natural inclinations: organic instruments, earnest songwriting, and a more true-to-themselves direction. Adding Oliva, Best Move was born. Many of Best Move's songs maintain an intentionally similar sonic feel. Guitars strum and piano twinkles while a layer of manipulated or synthesized instruments spread a hazy overtone on top of it all, and steady yet minimal drums keep things moving. Lyrically, the standards prevail - love, loss, friendship, searching for purpose - but the themes bubble under the surface of a sea of metaphor, leaving the listener to decipher the message in their own way. Anaya calls the sound a "thank you to the past," and while a warm, familiar tone echoes throughout the band's universe, something unmistakably modern remains.