The Dept. combines drum machines, synths, & guitar with sparse lyrics and vocals that Discorder Magazine described as "...a voice that's a little like Donovan's on a melancholy day".

12 MP3 Songs
POP: Quirky, POP: with Electronic Production



Details:
"The Department[...] is almost entirely a guy named Tyler Brett, with a voice that's a little like Donovan's on a melancholy day. And this turns out to be just the thing for a lot of these tracks. Brett does have a sense of humour, though, and does things like mock Van Halen's "Jump" (okay, an easy target) and lift the piano from the Carpenters' "Close to You." While most of the songs would have to fall under the general category of mopey indiepop, there are also vaguely industrial (although perhaps ironic) moments, satellitey sounds, and even a kind of children's song, "We're Mad," that runs for less than a minute".

(Janis McKenzie Discorder "Vancouver Special" Oct. '02)

note: Discorder review is a lumping together of the dept.'s muffin crystal(2001), & be your friend? (2002).

"One of the greatest aspects of this job is the discovery factor and that artist that we just played is a very unassuming one-man act [...] called The Department and the song was Relatively [...] it struck a chord with me and I love that song".

(Grant Lawrence CBC Radio3 Podcast, episode #11, 8/4/05)

the Dept. descriptors:

woebegone
woolgathering
unornamented
bootless
aardvarkian
unvarnished
cracker-barrel
unblended
beggarly
piddling
gangling
gaunt
unceremonious
chummy
idiomatic
bucolic
haggard
unqualified
loath
chowderheaded