The music of San Francisco's Citay brims with a casual, unforced effervescence that belies meticulous arranging. Formed in 2004 by guitarist Ezra Feinberg of Piano Magic and Tim Green of the F---ing Champs, Citay favors long instrumental sections piled high with acoustic guitars, tambourines, and Beach Boys-style vocal harmonies.
Feinberg once half-jokingly described Citay's songs as "at best epic, at worst long." At a little over five minutes, "Eye on the Dollar" isn't epic in length, but it crams in an album's worth of twists and turns into a relatively short period. Starting with guitars layered over hand drums, Feinberg sings dreamily of a "home away from home" and absentmindedly admonishes himself to "keep an eye on the dollar."
That inkling of practicality is sent into exile with bits of joyously piercing electric guitar and puffs of airy close harmonies. Grounded ever so slightly by an electric keyboard poking out here and there, the voices and guitar twist together until their boundaries melt in a blurrily exuberant celebration of everything harmonious and harmonized.
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