“The weather man says it’s gonna rain
The TV man says the world is full of pain. Oh
The white man comes and the white man goes
He takes what he takes and he never lets go. Oh
I know a girl who don’t care about none of these things –
She talks to the birds and she learns about what they sing –
All of her memories are turning into dreams – ”
This song is so classic. I feel like it could fit into almost any era in the past 60 years, and it would give whoever is listening to it chills. To me it seems like it’s a classic sense of disenfranchisement. There are a million voices to listen to, in the media, from those in power, and it can get pretty dark if you are paying attention. But also, we have the option to focus on nature, personal growth, creativity. We could all be like the girl “who don’t care about none of these things.” It’s a really inspiring message overlaying a classic blues guitar riff. I really can’t get enough of it. One last note of praise: I LOVE the weird sample that comes in at the end of the song. I can’t make out all of it, but it fits perfectly with the vibe that’s being created.
Bio: With nearly twenty years of song writing experience under his belt, Nate Smith has evolved into a beacon of honesty and real life experiences especially when it comes to the process of composing lyrics. Harboring a belief that all artists are most often struggling poets, Nate strives to create songs that take people on an emotional and reflective journey that can only be described as both gripping and beautiful. Check out more here: The Nate Smith Band.
“often get ahead of myself/a dead head wit said cred we all bled red/white and blue feelings/mixed emotions potion and healing/high pitched squealing keep dealing ya dummies/ we got lights here riot gear/protection for those effected by my affection its an infection we no detection”
The thing I’m immediately struck by in this song is how clever the word play is. There is a nice mix of consistent meter with absolutely insane internal rhyme. I especially like the last line that I pasted above. He also really uses enjambment to his advantage. If you remember that word from high school English class, it’s when you put a line break in a clever place in the middle of a thought. Like this: “Carolina reaper and its gets deeper then in too deep wit a pool stick when its greased up/freak fuck the law the cops and all” In hip hop, it’s less about the placement on the page and more about the way it’s said. So coming off the greased up pool stick, we see “freak fuck” enjambed with “fuck the law, the cops and all. It’s all really so clever.
Here is a bonus video of the song for you guys:
Be sure to check out Spitty the Sequel on social media: Facebook
Check out this spacey song with a familiar “allusion” to a certain song about children dying from the plague. This one seems to focus on an emotional death, mainly of friendship.
“Besties forever says a locket that’s lost
Buried under consuming flaws
Noticing absence surrounded by dust
Ashes to ashes all fall down
Remembering lovers in awe at first meet
Discussed plans, high hopes, real dreams
Fired by passion, add details, we drowned
Ashes to ashes all fall down”
At its core the song seems to ask you to remember that nothing is permanent, friendship, our bodies, life itself. That could be a really depressing message, but the song seems to try to take a positive out of it when it urges us to:
“Make life count everyday
It’s so special
Ashes to ashes all
Fall down”
Bio: Ashes is the second track on Nica’s upcoming album Bruised
Her album Bruised reflects the painful beauty of growth from personal experiences
Nica’s songwriting does not follow the standard formula that ears have grown tired of
“We see the steel horizon
She’s wearing cherry lipstick
She don’t care for diamonds
Just holy ghosts and matchsticks
You’re hiding on your mattress
The city is a lyric when you hear it
From fire escapes that you climb
So high
Never wanna be the one to sigh-”
This song is one of my absolute favorites right now. The lyrics throughout are a really nice mix of abstract images and really vivid snapshots that make me feel nostalgic for memories that aren’t even mine. The band says this song is about “heartbreak and beauty and moving on in a relationship.” I really love the way that is presented, because there are plenty of break up songs and plenty of love songs, but not a ton of songs that say, hey, this was beautiful, but now it’s over. It’s really hard to have that sort of perspective about something that has fallen apart. But if any of us go back in time enough, we will find someone that we don’t talk to anymore that we used to think the world of.
Bio: Mattress is off of Six TIme User’s debut EP Heads. It deals with themes of sadness, joy and anxiety of modern love in a New York City landscape under the “steel horizon.” The song is the fourth track off of Heads. “Everybody grows, everybody glows.” Lyrics by Pat D. Robinson, music by Evan Harris.
How fun is this song? I wish I had all the lyrics for it, but it definitely has some existential sort of questions that I can pick up throughout it. It has a nice mix of trippy Tame Impala sort of elements, along with some indie riffs that make this 5 minute song, feel like a 2 minute power ballad. I’d listen to it constantly even if it was a 10 minute song. I also love the breakdown to a focus on the lyrics around 3:30, complete with an Empire Strikes Back reference. Basically, I’m saying that this is one of the most unique songs I’ve heard in a while and I’m so stoked for the full album: Vegetative to come out.
Bio: “Zookeeper Submarine is the first track the band wrote and recorded for their upcoming record, Vegetative, and is the first total collaboration between its members. It was composed, arranged, and recorded by all members of the current lineup. As such, the track tangibly marks the transition of the group from a vessel releasing home recorded audio experiments to a touring live group, writing, producing, performing and creating songs together.”
This is a new edition of The Flock. People who love Hip-Hop are going to find so much good content in this post. What is The Flock, you ask? The Flock is an idea that we had to help fans of a specific genre find multiple bands they love in one post. It helps us provide value to you, the reader, by putting more of what you want in one place. It also helps the artists. Fans of their music come to the page and become fans of other similar artists, growing their fan base more efficiently. It also helps artists connect with other artists who have a similar feel, so they can help each other out, work together, play shows, etc. Our goal here is to help promote artists that we believe in and want to see succeed. The Flock is a great way to help with that, and we’ve seen some really cool things happen because of it. Let’s get into this edition of The Flock.
The Supreme Kings of Yesterday – “Next Latest”
I love the sample at the beginning, especially the faked out Trap style stuff that makes fun of “Migos and all those guys that sound the same.” It really sets the stage for a throwback style hip-hop track that puts the people who throw together tracks in a few days, rappers who have no flow (i.e. mumble rap), and many other aspects of modern rap that The Supreme Kings of Yesterday hope to turn the clock back on. Above just a diss track, my favorite thing about track is that it is really a positive track that is about being yourself. He isn’t really hating on people for using the popular style to make some money, but he is calling them out for not being themselves, and if nothing else, S.K.Y. is going to be uniquely themselves. I really love how a lot of the track is filled with 90s style turntable scratching, and multiple voices with multiple flows. It makes me feel comfortable, like I’m a kid again listening to The Chronic or OutKast (not that the style is exactly the same).
Bio: The Supreme Kings of Yesterday, The S.K.Y. (comprised of brothers Cise & Classy Touch – Next Latest – Single from the forthcoming sel-titled project, based in Los Angeles & Oakland CA. Fresh vibes await with clear and concise lyrics, precision instrumentation and drum break accuracy. You seek the best from your imagination, you Look Up To The S.K.Y.
Sauce is Matisse – “Socially Inept”
It’s not exactly the same, but the flow on this song really reminded me of some early Eminem. Especially around The Slim Shady LP or so. Considering that’s one of my favorite albums, I hope that’s an okay connection. Sauce is Matisse has his own unique lyrical style that seems to focus on being an outcast “As in socially inept.” And this song at it’s heart seems to be a celebration of those who aren’t necessarily the most popular or cool. It’s an unapologetic beating of the chest saying that it’s okay to be comfortable in your own skin, regardless of how popular or not it makes you.
Bio: Depression. Social anxiety. Peer-diagnosed Asperger’s. Add a nerdy passion for artistic creation to this walking contradiction and you’ve got Sauce is Matisse, the D.C.-born rap artist currently based in Charlottesville, VA.
After being professionally described as a mental paradox in his teens, Sauce was given the advice to “contain” said paradox in order to allow all competing sides of himself to coexist.
He has done so through music.
Sauce is Matisse draws inspiration from both underground and mainstream music across all genres, and his work showcases a sound between raw hip-hop and the most technical heavy metal outfits. Over the years, he has worked with and learned from several established names (and some not so established) in the multi-genre underground. Sauce is always evolving as an artist and refining his sound and visuals, tightening them into progressively visceral polished works of art.
Eventually, Sauce realized that he could not only save himself through music, but he could reach others as well. Listen and you’ll hear that this paradox has effectively been contained, and it’s tastier than ever.
Liion Gamble – “Solitude”
This song is just gorgeous and haunting. The female vocals really even out the whole thing, and I’m really moved by the consciousness of the lyrics, that range from melancholy to hopeful. The lyrics discuss police brutality, violence, struggling to make the art you want, relationships, divinity, and hope that there is a purpose behind all of this struggling and solitude. It’s really a wonderfully grounded song of hope and overcoming adversity.
Bio: Liion Gamble was raised in Raleigh, NC but born in St. Andrew, Jamaica. His musical influence can be traced all the way back to his Grandfather. With conscious content we are almost always drawn to assume the nature of the music will be a bit dull and somewhat preachy. Liion bridges the gap between substance and style in a major way. Melodic hooks and bridges, paired with quotable lyrics and stylistic flow, highlight this artist’s versatility.
With a growing social media presence Liion released his first official single, “Solitude” on all streaming platforms May of 2018 and has delivered an EP entitled Grand Re-Opening July 27th of 2018. Driven to cut out the middle man, he has become a student of production and audio engineering in order to take the quality of his sound to the next level. Building a hit record from the ground up is a big goal of his right now but only one of many in the pursuit of becoming a complete artist.
Datta Boy – “Keep Drinking (Prod. by Epik The Dawn)”
“FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE PEOPLE BY THE PEOPLE LETHAL
STAB US WITH THE SHARPEST NEEDLE
THEY SWEAR THEY PROVE IT IN THE PENALS
BREAK A NIGGA BACK YOU KOW THIS IS A FACT LIKE WAR MACHINE TO DON CHEADLE
NIGGAS STANDING STILL TARGET PRACTICE KILLS MANAQUINS BLACK BEATLES
I DON’T REALLY KNOW”
This song is full of really intense lyrics, but this was my favorite section. It really dives into the way that the system is corrupt and broken, by beautiful evoking constitutional language, to describe how they break someone. I also like the War Machine reference, which sees a black man being used for profit, but only as a secondary character. As far as the “keep drinking” hook goes, it kind of reminds me of “Swimming Pools” by Kendrick Lamar. It doesn’t seem like the drinking is a real solution, but it is a way to cope with how bad things can get. It takes on a somber tone of some sort of plead to find a way to numb all the pain surrounding the struggle, which is evidenced by the artists description of the song: “A man blames the world for his problems and heres a voice in his head telling him to keep drinking”
Bio: Datta Boy is a multifaceted artist from Los Angeles California. He began rapping at the age of 11 and ever since then he has had a love for music. He took a break from music to pursue a career in football. He played college football at The University Of Nevada Reno where he Played Fullback for the Wolf-Pack and also played for Southern Utah University where he was a hybrid blocker for the Thunder Birds (T-Birds). After he graduated from Southern Utah University, He played a year professional football and called it quits. He returns to his love of music. He has one mix-tape out called “Black Ink” and 3 music video out called Fell So Far, A Wave Of My Own Prod. & Feat. Ronny Bueller and THREAT which were all directed by Ralph Laurence Mariano and his assistant director Jose “No-Face” Quintanilla. Datta Boy is cousins with actress and R&B Singer Rhyon (Surviving Compton, Lincoln Heights,Get Rich or Die Tryin’) who has a hit single on the radio “California” and her older sister R&B Singer RaVaughn( Better Be Good, Best Friend).
Rageouz – “Bridging”
“The video expresses my contentedness with my surroundings, with my day-to-day life around family and friends, being what I value most” – Rageouz
This is really a fascinating video with a first person walk through a life, with some really inventive effects. At its heart, it’s a really calming look at a day in the life of someone who is “alright.” There’s not a ton of trauma or drama, it just feels right. I think we can all learn to look around and appreciate our lives for what they are: a good time with some friends, time spent with family, a pretty drive. “How could I complain?”
Bio: Hailing from the stomping grounds of East London’s Canning Town, Rageouz’s musical journey began at the age of just 11. Raised on a healthy diet of UK Rap legends and inspired by the likes of Kano and Dizzee Rascal, his curiosity was sparked. Bursting through with his debut ‘Outchea’ followed by his freshman mixtape Hell’s Angel, Rageouz has displayed an unwavering work rate. His innate hunger and skill at delivering has led him to be featured on GRM Daily’s ‘Next Gen 10’ alongside artist such as Avelino, Bonkaz and A2 and he has released a string of successful projects including ‘East Side’, his ‘Ethos’ EP, collaborative project ‘Back 2 Da Future’ with Preacher Soul and ‘On The House’.
Contagiously creative and enthrallingly enigmatic join Rageouz on his latest pursuit and get to know the exciting new prospect of UK music.
These are our favorite new songs of the past couple days. Every song has been released within the last 48 hours, so you can tell your friends about not only new artists, but their new songs that they’ve never heard.
ARTISTS LOOK HERE: Caleb and I have started a Facebook group that we want to turn into a place for artists from around the country to find likeminded bands to fill shows out, find shows, and really just a community made by artists to talk about the industry. If you’re interested in joining that, CLICK HERE.
Joseph Angel – “Shame”
Wow. Those vocals are incredible huh? This is actually a solo project from an artist with some really impressive songwriting credits already, including Rihanna’s triple-platinum smash “Love On The Brain” from ANTI, among many other chart-topping hits. There was direct attention to get a analog and classic vocal track out of this, a la Muscle Shoals, and it was completely successful. This is a vocal talent that is sure to blow up in 2018, and you heard it here first. Angel is a self-made man, working several jobs to bankroll his passion until landing song writing credits for many great artists. Now he’s ready to start his own career, and I can’t wait to keep getting chill bumps from the way he playfully hits every note in the register.
Trevor Myall – “Pyro Heart”
Check out this debut single from Trevor Myall. He sings with a confidence and production that would have you never knowing that this is his first official release. The song at it’s heart seems to be a plea to someone who inspires the speaker:
“Guide me home, guide me home
I know you’re there, my ocean flare
My firework, when the whole world hurts
You light the dark
Pyro heart”
Whether this is a real person, an ideal, something spiritual, I can’t say, but I think we can all relate to a meditation on what inspires us, and seeking more exposure to it.
Bio: Blending the worlds of both folk and electronic, Trevor Myall’s debut single delivers an impressive vocal steeped in raw emotion, soul and a melody that drifts between the light and darkness of self-reflection. Pyro Heart is an honest cry for help, with lyrics poetically showcasing the singer’s influences of indie & folk music through a tale of hope and despair. With production from The Swoons, the music brings out a refreshing blend of both electronic and organic elements. A combination of orchestral textures and angelic choral riffs create a refreshing backdrop to the lead single from the upcoming One Way Ticket – EP due later this fall.
Baby FuzZ – “Shadowland”
How beautiful is this song? If you are going to make a modern song with primarily a piano and vocals like David Gray or something, it has to have 2 essential elements. 1. Great vocals. Check. 2. Beautiful lyrics:
“They called it eclipse
Said it with a shrug
Now Radio Jesus is out there on the run
And you can go blind from staring at the sun
Here in
Shadowland
In Shadowland”
Check. At it’s core the song seems to be a bit of a post-modern fueled look at materialism and what is “real”. I really love the upside down barcoded American-flag as the album cover, because it captures the plasticity of experience that is so inherent in these lyrics:
“So play your tragic anthem and cheer
I was raised in a plastic paradise and I’m still here
Here in Shadowland
In Shadowland”
Bio: Fox explains, “In 2017 I moved to Canada for a year. Eventually, my passport ran out and I came back to the US. ‘Shadowland’ is a protest song about myself. I’m protesting my hypocrisy, my lack of empathy, my greed, my loneliness, and my complicitness to everything my taxes go toward. It’s easy to protest other people or institutions. Look in the mirror and protest yourself. That’s ‘Shadowland.'”
After moving to Montreal from New York after the 2016 election, Fox created the alter ego and made a full length album based around the character. It was pieced together from recordings started in Montreal, New Jersey, Oregon, and Norway.
Gingerbomb – “Wildfire”
With a simple tagline: “the world’s first all ginger band finally takes center stage,” the aptly named Gingerbomb has created one of my favorite songs of 2018. The vocal harmonies and layering in the song really stand out to me as a perfect blend of folk/americana with easy listening classic rock. The band describes the theme of the song as: “Wildfire is the lead single from the forthcoming debut Gingerbomb record. The Song represents female empowerment – celebrating someone who walks her own walk, in confident in who she is and who everyone wishes they could have a little piece of.”
Bio: From the boroughs of New York City, to the shores of Los Angeles County, gingers are often seen as a scare commodity. However, against all odds, seasoned musicians Megan Burtt, Sara Dee, Zach Berkman, Tod Livingston and Ryan Vaughn miraculously united to form the world’s first all ginger based supergroup – Gingerbomb.
I love the visual style of this video. Parts of it remind me of those old flash videos on NewGrounds.com and part of it is a genius multimedia project that combines pictures, live drawn art, and movement. It’s really beautiful. The other really essential element to this song is the lyrics. Let’s dive into what makes them so effective:
“And I’m ever grown in a wood of gold
And I can’t be told when to call or fold
And I’m always talking and I can’t shut up
And I’m awful flawed but I’ve mastered stuff
And I think you’re cool.. you’re.. you’re.. you’re really nice like”
The whole song mixes a sense of poetry (as you can see in the repetition and anaphora) and conversational tone ( as you can see with the seeming stutter). This gives the song an understandable but simultaneously complex and abstract vibe. The whole first half of the song seems to be a listing off of shortcomings or anxieties, while the last half is a thank you letter:
“And it’s you that was constant you killed my concerns
It was you that was constant you killed my concerns
You should know you resurrected my trust
It was you that was constant this love is a must
(Spoken)
And if you were my only fan I’d never stop making music,
And you’re the only one pulling me through this
And I really should be saying this out loud but I can’t and
For now I’m just a ghost I’m just a phantom … ”
This whole section seems like it’s leading into a love note, but then we get the subversion of that at the end, and we see that he hasn’t said this to this person at all. He’s just a “ghost” or a “phantom”. I also really like that we get that classic movie moment in the video, when it ends with a girl picking up the phone trying to connect, but he’s already gone. It’s a very relatable theme of Unrequited Love (which we did a podcast episode on).
Bio: Sea High is a multi instrumentalist rapper and singer-songwriter from Ireland, using homegrown beats made by himself and O’B1 from Off Key Collective, a grassroots label that they co-founded
Sea High takes hip hop and uses it to convey abstract, conceptual themes of love, hate and everything inbetween.
LUV. Is an unsent message to a special someone that takes your breath, words and worries away.
***NOTE: OUR AUDIO ISN’T PERFECT IN THIS EPISODE DUE TO A ROUGH SKYPE CONNECTION AND SOME PESKY CICADAS, IT WILL BE FIXED NEXT WEEK, BUT CHECK OUT THE AMAZING MUSIC***
Join Seth and Caleb as they premiere a song, discuss idols, self-love, #metoo, the war on drugs, sex and money, gun control, and as always, the very best music you’ve never heard before.
These are our favorite new songs of the past couple days. Every song has been released within the last 48 hours, so you can tell your friends about not only new artists, but their new songs that they’ve never heard.
ARTISTS LOOK HERE: Caleb and I have started a Facebook group that we want to turn into a place for artists from around the country to find likeminded bands to fill shows out, find shows, and really just a community made by artists to talk about the industry. If you’re interested in joining that, CLICK HERE.
This song is so cool. The style reminds me instrumentally of Neil Young, and the vocals are out of this world. It seems like overall there is an emphasis on using the phrase “mind is running wild” as an elaborate personified being that is being talked to throughout the song.
“come out come out, wherever you are
big mystery
bothering me
get the fuck out
i try to cultivate an organized mind still it runs wild sometimes”
So these thoughts that we wish we could run and hide form, are being represented by a monster chasing you through the woods or something. The last lines are particularly haunting:
“why do i worry about any of it
i’ve survived in the dark before
i could try and find a way to stop
falling and falling
but I know there is no floor”
It reminds me a lot about the conversation Holden Caulfield has with his teacher mentor near the end of the The Catcher in the Rye when it’s discussing a “fall that never ends”. It’s basically a way to talk about depression, because, at least in my experience, depression doesn’t have a true “rock bottom.” A “rock bottom” is a place to restart from, but in the depths of depression, there’s no way to find your footing to even begin to start again. It’s a really haunting beautiful image, and song.
This song is really interesting. Musically, it has some of the coolest layered vocals I’ve heard in a long time, and I also like the guitar work, that mostly walks a pretty straight forward riff, but has moments of growth throughout that suggest a breakdown is coming, even though the guitar solo never really comes, we have two excellent vocal breakdowns around 2 minutes and 3 minutes into the song that make the build up pay off. Lyrically, the artist broke down (ha) what the song was about for us:
“‘Gently Break It’ specifically was written from the perspective of a broken person (*ahem*) seeking out another who would hurt them, because it is familiar, and therefore, comfortable. It sheds light on a situation that is all too common romantically where a person thinks that they are undeserving of love and therefore romanticizes the idea of playing a victim in an unhealthy relationship. I have been that girl, and can’t say that I won’t be again. I’m just hoping that this song serves a reminder of that tendency, and spreads awareness to everyone who hears it that 1) they are not alone in this cycle and 2) they can break it by believing they are worthy of something positive and healthy.”
I love that explanation because it shows 1. how art can be a sort of therapy or exorcising of certain demons, but also 2. that it doesn’t necessarily mean all the struggles are gone just because you wrote that they were. It’s a battle that will continue, no matter how much your ideal self wants to to be over, and that is a realistic message that hopefully someone needed to hear.
This song is so hauntingly beautiful. It’s an exploration of living in a place that reminds you of someone that’s not longer there (I can’t tell if it’s a literal death, or a relationship that ended). Either way, it’s like the house is haunted because the memories still hang in all of these objects and photos. It makes it really difficult to move on, with all of these reminders haunting you from the walls and shelves.
For me, this is one of the hardest type of songs to get right, a completely stripped down acoustic song with the vocals and the lyrics being the main focus, but when it is done right, like Ryan’s is, it is my favorite type of song. It makes me feel like I’m walking down an empty street on a snowy day. It’s melancholy and lonely, but it’s the way I want to be right now.
“Darling if I knew, half the things I thought I knew,
baby then I’d still have you.”
I nominate this video for short film of the year. The fact that this is all done with one take (or some really sneaky cuts that I didn’t see) makes it that much more impressive. Watching this narrative unfold in one room, with one person (though there is an implied second person at one point), was so riveting. I literally couldn’t take my eyes away. The song itself seems to be a lesson in regret, that feeling you get when you’ve lost somebody and realize how much you did wrong along the way to push them away. This is a lesson in getting a quality music video out of a fairly cheap set. Great, great, job.
You have to listen to all of these lyrics. It’s got so much truth for anyone who’s had a self-destructive period of their life. It seems to be someone who is struggling with, well a lot of things, addiction? sleeping around? And there is another person who keeps trying to reach out to him and help him out, despite it all. He’s just having a hard time accepting that help, maybe he doesn’t want to get better yet.
“Yeah, I’ve been out drinking
I just talk past my friends
Trying to talk to myself
I wish I could see you
Just for a moment thought the fever had passed
My lover is calling
But my porcelain dream
I can never take back
So I let her down
And she keeps reaching out
Knowing all I need’s a little help
Just a little help ”
I was tempted to copy past the entire lyrics, because every verse really resonated me. But this one resonated with me the most, especially the “I just talk past my friends/ trying to talk to myself” line. It’s perfect in the sense that I immediately could picture it, in others, in myself, and yet it’s said in a way that I would’ve never imagined writing. That’s what makes good poetry. That’s what makes good music. That’s what makes good truth.
The lyrics to this song are super trippy. I guess that fits with the syncopated instrumentals that leave you feeling delightfully disoriented.
“Beneath the city, a crowd a people
Muscles turning from all the vapors
Acid dreams and burnt bodies
They drank the blood, for the supreme one
So what happens now?
What have we learned?
We share with you now
We’ve done what we meant to do”
I can’t say I fully know what’s going on here, or that anyone is really supposed to. It seems like an acid dream gone wrong, but with a kernel of truth. If this is a reflection of our society, what paths have we taken to get to the negative places we reside? What happens now? What have we learned? All art can do is try to point out truths, and hope they mean something. People can then shape the rest of the world after those truths. Let’s see what Spirit Award says about the song:
“‘Supreme Truth’ points to influences of early New Order and Can, highlighting psych rock melodies and ethereal vocals. Thematically the single is based on the Japanese death cult “Aum Shinrikyo” lead by Shoko Asahara, who recruited the rich to join his cult and carry out Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995. After becoming fascinated with cults, institutions and religions, the band shed light on how it can be so easy to get lost in something when that’s all you’re surrounded by.”
So there you go, I wouldn’t have known that (obviously) without their help, but I think the general message of the song shines through regardless of if we know the backstory.
Mmm. Those sweet, sweet horns. Ribotto’s music is described as “avant-folk-rock”, and though I’ve never heard anything described that way, it’s a perfect interpretation. It is, at it’s core, folk rock, but there are some experimental aspects to it that make it stand out in a way that is truly unique. It kind of reminds me of what Justin Vernon could’ve done, if he hadn’t leaned so hard into the autotune (not hating on Bon Iver, just saying his solo stuff was completely different).
The lyrics themselves also lend to the surreal “avant” part of the genre. There is a lot of witty wordplay throughout the whole album, but I love this section:
“When did all these things become then
Now that I know what was said
I wish I was then now instead”
This reminds me a good bit of e.e. cummings poetry. He plays with syntax and time in a really fun way throughout the whole song. If you check out his other stuff, you see this is consistent lyrically throughout his album Matter of Time, which makes a lot of sense, because that makes the album name itself a witty comment.
“Quietly, quietly it grows
Ripping at the seams
How did we, how did we get lost
In these old city streets
Used to be, used to be in love
Now our eyes never meet
Oh, I can feel the light fading
You still have some fire worth saving
Oh, spill the blood on the pavement
Oh lord, you can tell I’m wasted”
On it’s surface, the song sounds upbeat, including a dance heavy chorus around the 1 min mark or so. When diving into the lyrics though, it’s obvious that there’s a little more going on here. It seems to be an exploration into the past, when you think about someone you used to love, and who used to love you, but now you barely know one another. The speaker can “feel the light fading”, but also believes there is “still some fire worth saving.” It’s unclear if anything ever comes to this, but the “you can tell I’m wasted” seems to imply it’s more of a drunk texting your ex scenario, than a real attempt to get back together.
And last, but certainly not least, Castle Pines. This song has an interesting mix of Grunge and Shoegaze elements, with some really thoughtful lyrics. Let’s check out some of them:
“God Damn the damned up thoughts
Sinking my ship in tied up knots
Churning the harbor door
My passage never meets the shore
Dressed up for a dimmer shade of gray
For a bed and a bottle laid away”
I really love the “god damn the damned up..” line because of how clever and playful the word play is. It seems like in general this song relates a malaise or depression of a generation being encapsulated through sea worthy imagery. And unfortunately at times, it feels like the best we can hope for is “a bed and a bottle laid away.” Instead of focusing on my interpretation though, let’s hear from the band:
“Cassiopeia is an intentionally droll and sleepy sung lament of differing travelers viewpoints throughout history, partly inspired by nautical themes, including the Constellation and Greek Mythological character the song is named after. A narrative of loss, forgotten meaning and questioning the reality of the status quo, the song parallels the Roman Empire, the Roman Catholic Church and Modern day America as civilizations defeated by the internalization of simply not caring anymore.”
I can’t say I disagree with their assessment of how this all relates to our modern America. I hope at some point hope can overcome apathy, but that’s a wait and see for now.
