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Listening to Pale’s “Too Much” is watching someone desperately crawl away from the incoherence of a break up.

It is rarely, if ever easy to lose someone regardless of circumstance. A failed romance; a broken friendship; a death in the family. What exactly has been lost is irrelevant in “Too Much.” Whatever was once there has been replaced with a maddening, hopeless sense of loss and incomprehensible guilt. 

Short of inhabiting another person’s head, our ability to understand someone is always going to be imperfect. Often it is a struggle to simply understand ourselves, let alone the complexities of a separate life we can only witness secondhand and attempt to draw what conclusions we may.

This inability to ever truly know someone becomes unbearable once you discover they are leaving, and everything you thought you knew of them is suddenly called into question. The music video for “Too Much” reflects this haze, consisting entirely of a white goop falling backwards off a woman’s head. Beneath the liquid her features are unrecognizable and blank. She becomes a shell of the person underneath seen now only in the brief moments when the shell breaks and reveals an eye, a mouth, a sign that there is still a person underneath but you are no longer allowed to see them.

Even more, what you thought you knew about yourself - the one person you’ll ever be able to see in full gross detail - becomes equally suspect. How much was your fault? Did you try to hard, or not hard enough? Who is going to take this blame so the other can sleep at night?

Could I make it more clear? Could I give you more time? Did I say enough Or did I say too much?

“Too Much” never arrives at any answers to the questions it poses. Ultimately, they are not questions with answers, but a rhetorical mind fuck that goes around and around and around until either you invent answers to satisfy yourself, or break under the inability to be satisfied by half truths and questions you didn’t get to ask. 

“Too Much” does not aspire to the comfort of pop or obfuscating indie. Rather, it is something more human. Simple, uncomfortable, recognizable, and honest.

#pale #too much #music #new music #music criticism #alternative #indietronica #indie

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2016 has been a miserable year. 

We have lost some of the greatest performers of our time with the passing of David Bowie, Prince, Alan Rickman, and so many more whose names have been appended to a list that keeps growing. We have lost over 800 people to police brutality, many of them innocent black men killed by a racism we continue to believe doesn’t still exist. ISIS continues to rain terror down upon cities across the globe, and the ongoing conflicts in Syria and Turkey have displaced and killed more than we will likely ever be able to fully know. Add to that an election which has spiraled into a madness previously only known to cyberpunk fiction, and 2016 begins to look not only like a bad year but the beginning of even worse years to come.

So when Ra Ra Riot proclaims it’s “the year of absolutely loving,” I laugh. I laugh because Absolutely is so detached from the colossal mess that has been 2016, and yet works as well as the year’s soundtrack. It is a song of blissful, carefree optimism, that when placed in the context of 2016′s snowballing calamities provides such a dramatic juxtaposition as to almost render both the song and year comical. But in the same instant I want to laugh, I find myself on the verge of tears.

As much as I want to distance myself from the terror that seems to have reached to every corner of the globe, it is impossible and an insult to those who are suffering through it to do so. The theatrics of news coverage, of this election, of the insane ramblings of the racist/transphobic/misogynistic, make it all too easy to view the world’s horror with a voyeuristic distance. Taking the time to actually sit and consider the lives lost, the families separated, and the people who continue to be discriminated against or even killed because of who they are is deeply saddening. But it is a knowledge that is necessary.

And so I will laugh at Absolutely and its optimism. I will try to find something good in a year of misery. I am just one person with no great power to enact change and help those less fortunate. But if nothing else, I can avoid being yet another source of sadness in one of the worst years in recent memory.

#ra ra riot #absolutely #2016 #this year blows #humanity was a mistake

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I already posted about one of Kishi Bashi’s tracks off his newest release, Sonderlust, so perhaps this is cheating a bit and I should find someone new to fawn over. But damn if Honeybody isn’t the posthumous soundtrack to my summer.

Honeybody is a bouncy, playful love song the likes of which few artists can pull off with any sense of sincerity. But as a prolific purveyor of esoteric metaphors and affectionate turns of phrase, Kishi Bashi sounds entirely at home asking his lover to play board games before shifting into a cheesy and utterly charming series of prolonged oooooohs.

Kishi Bashi excels at quirky love songs, but Honeybody may be his most sublime. It lacks the abstractions of his prior work while retaining the lovable goofiness. It almost begs you do dance, to grab a lover and move your feet no matter how silly you look. Because life’s too short to care if you’re a dork, and often, it’s a lot more fun if you are.

Further Listening: Q&A

#Kishi Bashi #Honeybody #Sonderlust

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It is difficult to conceive of Marian Hill as anything but purveyor of heavily percussive sensual electronica. Her style is precise and intoxicating, like the combined effect of a stiff drink and a dimly lit dance floor. She leverages a sense of danger against heavily suggestive audial caresses, each of her tracks seeming to coyly beckon you forward even as they engulf you in distorted voices and blaring synths.

All of this applied to I Want You, closing track of Marian Hill’s Act One, released earlier this year. It’s more playful and upbeat than many of her tracks, but still a far cry from a radio-friendly pop banger. Melvv’s remix changes this, tearing the track open and letting it breathe. His remix aligns I Want You closer to the faux-1940′s swing of the Great Gaspy film soundtrack, or a less exuberant Caravan Palace. Where the original slowly slid and gyrated, Melvv’s version bounces and grooves.

All of this is not to say either version is better than the other. Rather, they each create their own mood, preserving the soul of the track as it is wrapped and embellished for a different atmosphere. What is universal to both tracks is a resounding sense of fun; seen through different eyes, but no less resonate.

Further listening: I Want You (original)

#I want you #melvv #new music #remix #song a day #music criticism #marian hill

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Train echoes with percussive enthusiasm. No, not that Train. There are no drops of Jupiter to be found here, not mentions of soul sisters. Brick + Mortar's love and life anthem is less feel good pop than it is the musical embodiment of a beating heart. "I want to take the train with you" begins Train's catchy refrain. A simple line which embodies a complex assortment of emotions. Fear of stagnation or past down responsibilities; affection for a person you can't stand to be without. Train's premise is hardly a far cry from most top 40 hits, but it's energy and conviction is something else all together. Running drums and hand claps join a chorus of voices to push you forward. You can do more, be more. All you need is to take that first step, and Train is here to give you the motivation to do so. It's the perfect running anthem paired with a compelling love song. An unconventional combination that works wonders for getting me on my feet.

#train #brick + mortar #new music #song a day #music criticism

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Magic City Hippies are playing with sensual fire. Hush is drenched in passionate, incoherent desire, a longing for something conceptualized but always found within a hazy uncertainty. Muffled guitars endeavor to cry out but are squashed beneath the track’s relentless pursuit of a tangible sexuality.

A brief rap interlude straddles the line between innuendo and an animalistic desire, ensuring Hush is never lowered from the cloud upon which it rests only to plummet to earth and be consumed by indiscriminate encounters with another body. It is perhaps fitting that Hush feels just a little pretentious; just a tad too smitten with its own suggestive will they/won’t they groove to be easily grouped in with other whispy sexual jams. Because it’s this tiny bit of overt self-awareness that makes it so intoxicating. I can feel myself being played, but I’m powerless to stop it, and truth be told part of me kind of likes it. 

#Hush #Magic City Hippies #New Music #Song A Day #Music Criticism

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Taste recalls a fall into ecstasy; the moment of realizing how deep your feelings for someone go, and how far you have yet to go in order to deserve them. It’s the experience of feeling something snap and the blindfold coming off. Of seeing yourself laid bare and raw, with all your false presumptions and insecurities made plain and insignificant compared to them.

Taste recalls self-discovery. The act of finding everything you held to be true to be incomplete and broken, like so many parts of yourself you tried and failed to fill with someone else’s love. It’s a journey to self-affirmation and apologies; of degradation and rebirth; of sex and love and realizing there’s something more.

Taste recalls longing. The urge to be with someone a maddening, inscrutable desire you can’t shake and instead feel with all of your being. Feelings of inadequacy overshadowed by passion, the knowledge that you will never match up forming a drive to try harder than you know how to do. You may never be more than you are, but nothing in this world could convince you not to try for them.

#braids #taste #new music #song a day #music criticism #awkward lifestuffs

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I am a fairly self-deprecating person. Scratch that. If you can get through a conversation with my without hearing a reference to my pessimistic worldview or severe lack of people skills, consider yourself lucky. What began as dry humor has spiralled rapidly into full-blown nihilism that is now pulling me down into the abyss. I don’t want to be funny anymore.

This isn’t exactly what Lucy Dacus is singing about, but I can’t help but hear a similar plea to escape from her self-created personality trait. We all love categorizing things, be they books or shoes or decorative refrigerator magnets, but when we apply this habit toward people things can get ugly. I will briefly sidestep the obvious examples of race and gender stereotyping, as those present their own complex issues beyond the scope of this post, but even if unintentionally we can often get in the habit of assembling our own cartoon group out of recognizable traits which must then define us.

I don’t wanna be funny anymore I got a too short skirt Maybe I can be the cute one

It’s comforting to have a role, but when that role then envelopes who you are as a person, it becomes a humiliating and self-defeating struggle to convince people you’re anything but what they’ve ascribed you to be. I Don’t Wanna Be Funny Anymore is a cry to be heard with a voice people don’t recognize. To be seen as a whole person, with interests and quirks unique onto herself; to belong for who you are rather than who you’ve made yourself into for the sake of belonging. I Don’t Wanna Be Funny Anymore is witty and brilliantly catchy, but, fittingly, it’s the message underneath that’s most compelling.

#I don't wanna be funny anymore #lucy dacus #song a day #new music #music criticism #awkward life stuff

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Baio's Sister of Pearl was once flamboyant and perky but you'd never know it from Samuel Proffitt's remix, which converts the track from alt pop into a sweeping piano ballad. Where the original drew from 80s vocal theatrics and Vampire Weekend-esq rhythmic eccentricity, Samuel Proffitt has stripped the track to its barest essentials. Baio's vocals are largely untouched, but they take on a newfound gravitas when paired with an emotionally charged piano melody and the occasional outburst of a house percussion set. Sister of Pearl is no longer the whimsical track is was created as, but a touching and gripping lovesong. Baio's voice no longer feels comically dramatic but overflowing with emotion and a restrained sadness. I would never have expected to cry to Sister of Pearl, and yet Samuel Proffitt has altered it so substantially that I am finding myself wrecked and longing for someone to cling to.

#sister of Pearl #baio's #Samuel Proffitt #new music #remix #song a day #music criticism

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Today is not my day. This is not the first post I wrote for this song. The original was lost into the ether when my phone powered down. So I’m starting from scratch, exhausted from meetings and classes and emails and assignments, just wishing I could curl up with someone miles away. I settled for a cute nonsensical text exchange and put Hands Down on repeat.

I’ve always been a fan of dorky “authentic” hipster romances, but I never realized people could actually be so ridiculous in love until I found myself in one. Hands Down captures the enchanting mundanity of an everyday romance. The Greeting Committee’s spunky ode to awkward romance recognizes the way tiny things because enormous when they’re with them, because all you want to do is show them how much you care but words will never suffice. So you write silly songs and go on silly dates and make a fool of yourself for them, because you realize all that time spent trying to be cool and aloof - it was pointless.

Hands Down is cuddling on a picnic blanket or beside a fire. It’s a coffee date at a faux-vintage cafe or holding hands while walking down the sidewalk at night. It’s the feeling you get when you look in someone’s eyes and all you can think is how the hell did this happen to me, I’m nobody and they’re everything. At least, that’s what it is for me. Perhaps you’ll hear your own hipster romance echoed back to you, or are still waiting to find one. In either case Hands Down is no less charming, a simple song for simple feelings that seem impossible all the same.

#hands down #the greeting committee #new music #song a day #music criticism

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STRFKR excels at crafting songs that are as eminently danceable as they are unsettling. In this regard, Tape Machine fits well within STRFKR’s cannon. Its groove is infectious and its progression uneasy, and the band’s extraterrestrial aspirations are more visible than ever.

Sound effects circa 1960′s science fiction grace the track’s exterior as more human concerns are discussed in lyrics nearly subdued beyond comprehension. As is often the case, STRFKR has once again created a song that seems to long for the infinity of space as it laments gravity’s hold. Tape Machine is an 80′s pop hit and an existential crisis rolled into one, and the result is something to be lost in.

Further listening: Boy Toy

#Tape Machine #New Music #Song A Day #Music Criticism #STRFKR

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I’m two days late with this, and for that, I apologize for the egregious oversight. On September 2nd, 2016, Freddie Mercury would have been 70 years old. Coinciding with this anniversary was the release of a singles compilation, Messenger of the Gods, and while nobody needs an excuse to listen to Freddie Mercury this release is an exemplary occasion to revisit one of modern music’s greatest performers.

Listening to Messenger of the Gods, I was struck for the innumerable time at how incredible Mercury was and how sad it is to have lost him so prematurely. His charisma and musical enthusiasm is astounding, as at home belting out 80′s pop songs as operatic ballads. Though this release deliberately puts Mercury at the center of each track, I would be hard pressed to find any song he performed on in which the entire piece didn’t immediately center onto him. His presence is magnetic and awestriking. I can scarcely conjure up a modern artist that can match his ability, as even those who can keep pace with his voice are immediately lost when put up against his raw energy.

Messenger of the Gods is top to bottom a marvelous collection, jumping from isolated but optimistic opener Living on My Own to the exceedingly dramatic The Great Pretender, which in many ways reads as an outward acknowledgement of the struggle Mercury faced with the social taboo of his bisexuality. The collection extends across a musical expanse only Mercury could travel, and following him across it is as glorious and inspiring as it is sad in its finality.

Freddie Mercury will likely continue to be a name leveraged by record companies until it has lost all significance in the public sphere, but his musical doesn’t have to become the depressing result of overzealous reproduction. Messenger of the Gods is cashing in on Mercury’s name and date of birth, but looking beyond its posthumous release, it remains a beautiful collection that remains as affecting today as when its tracks were first released. I have done a pitiful job paying tribute to one of the most impactful artists to have ever lived, but Mercury’s music speaks for itself, honest and earnest and the closest thing to magic we’ve likely ever known.

Further Listening: Messenger to the Gods (album)

#freddie mercury #messenger to the gods #new music #song a day

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There is no way for me to say this without sounding like both a pretentious schmuck and a saccharine romantic, but I’m going for it anyway: it’s not about the places, or the adventures, or the checkmarks we place next to the things we need to do before we kick the bucket. In the end, it’s about people. The people we’ve loved and hated; the people we’ve eaten ice cream with at a Venetian cafe or walked with down Roman streets. The event may be the reason for coming together, but it’s that we’ve come together at all that it becomes meaningful.

I’ll give you a moment to finish laughing or shaking your head. The antisocial and introverted can check out now, if they haven’t already. I cannot speak for everyone, and even as I attempt to make grandiose generalizations, I recognize that some people simply do not care as much about other people as much as living life for themselves, and I totally respect that. But I can’t buy into it. I can’t feel that a place is significant without acknowledging that it only became such due to those who came before and made it what it is. I can’t see the importance of experiencing something, unless I have someone to share it with, or better yet experience it with together. Life - yes, I’m plunging straight into existentialism - is about connecting with someone or multiple someones, and in doing attempt to create some meaning together within these infinite cosmos.

Now, where am I going with this? Home, that is to say Islandis’ 2015 alt hit. It’s entirely possible Islandis’ simply liked the idea of a song made up of a globetrotting vernacular (Johnny Cash, this is not, but there’s a thin kinship), but I like to imagine Home is not solely about the places named, but the understanding that it ultimately isn’t about them. It’s about having been there together, to have had that adventure together, that it becomes meaningful. The dissonant guitar riff is nice, and the track as a whole has a swaying summertime groove, but it’s the chorus that I keep coming back to. Specifically a single line: “...and i've seen Paris, and you've seen Rome, but it don't mean shit 'til we get home.”

This post brought to you by the existential nightmare that is my 21st birthday.

#islandis #home #new music #song a day #music criticism

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Sylvan Esso are masters of electronic subversion. Radio opens like any number of subdued EDM hits. A chippy keyboard melody, pulsating bass progression, straightforward progression. But just as Radio begins to feel a little too familiar, Meath’s vocals send the track careening off into another direction entirely. 

Radio is sensual and ridiculous, oscillating between innuendo and overt sexuality. Sylvan Esso are so delightfully uninhibited, as comfortable talking of eating all the candy as they are swinging accusations of “sucking American dick.” Radio rejects subtlety in exchange for playfulness. It is a marked changed from Sylvan Esso’s traditionally subdued style, but one I am eager to follow to whatever conclusion it may lead to.

#Sylvan Esso #Radio #New Music #Song A Day #Music Criticism

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Barricade (Matter Of Fact) foreshadows an emotional explosion. Yumi Zouma are in control, but only barely. Melancholic guitar lines pop in and out as the bass builds, rising and falling like a tide preparing to overtake the immovable ground before it. Christie Simpson’s ethereal voice echoes with a deliberate indifference, occasionally joined by other members but largely singing to the accompaniment of herself. 

Every sound and effect that swirls within Barricade is so controlled, so intentionally subdued, it is hard not to imagine what is beneath the surface, a captivating uncertainty that lends Barricade a heightened intrigued. The closest the track ever comes to realizing these imaginings is when it opens just slightly during a bridge of sorts, but just as quickly as Barricade begins its outburst it pulls it back in, and we are left where we began wondering what was said and remains unresolved.

#Yumi Zouma #Barricade #New Music #Song A Day #Music Criticism

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The Derevolutions sound is as uninhibited and witty as you may expect and hope from their pseudo-anti-antagonistic moniker. Dangerous Lies fluffy whistled hook is counterbalanced by Ana Karina’s dry vocals, a contrast that lands somewhere between Faded Paper Figures and just about anything off the Juno soundtrack. 

The Derevolutions are wryly entertaining despite making music that feels antithetical to the tropes of fun music. There’s no sing-song chorus, no clinically professional post-processing, no optimistic takeaway. Just two people, a simple beat, some chords, and a feeling of intense human frustration. It’s cathartic for possibly the worst reasons, but cathartic all the same.

Oh I'm so sorry I said We're never ever ever Gonna last ‘till the end Things, please forget what I said We're never ever ever Gonna last ‘till the end

Further Listening: Have You Ever Been To Washington

#The Derevolutions #Dangerous Lies #New Music #Song A Day #Music Criticism

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I had to keep rechecking the release date for RCVR, as despite 2016 being a standout year for 80′s revivals, few have managed to so completely avoid the feeling of imitation as successfully as Big Black Delta. RCVR doesn’t sound like indie pop's take on 80′s funk, it is far too earnest and dramatic. The heavy synths could have been pulled from a cyberpunk action movie, while the hyperactive bassline holds the track in place as everything explodes around it.

Maybe RCVR’s authenticity is on account of featuring an actual 80′s pop star, Debbie Gibson. Her contribution is a brilliant counterpart for Jonathan Bates’ strong and unwavering voice, adding highs and contrast to a track that is already overflowing with hard to anticipate variety. RCVR is a track to be soaked in. A Track to let wash over you, lift you up, pull you into its world, and dance to until the sub blows out.

Further listening: Overlord

#big black delta #rcvr #new music #song a day #music criticism