Enjoying lockdown 3? Personally, I think it’s the worst in the trilogy. Aside from laughing at Bernie Sanders memes, listening to music is the only thing that has been keeping me sane this week. Here are the most noteworthy tracks that I listened to…
THE BEST:
‘Badibaba’ – Goat Girl
South London rock group Goat Girl deliver this gorgeous and
equally eerie song about the self-destruction of the human race. Psychedelic
guitars, woozy synths and groovy bass make up the instrumentation (the moody verse
at 0:42 kinda reminds me of Trail of the Dead’s ‘Mistakes and Regrets’ – which
is a song I absolutely love!). The catchy harmonised hook is oddly uplifting,
while the instrumental outro is contrastingly menacing. It’s a whirlwind of
different moods – and it has me hyped for their upcoming album On All Fours.
‘Orion From The Street’ – Field Music
The band name has put me off listening to this group for
quite a while. I always assumed they were some wishy-washy folk rock group
playing acoustic ballads amongst herds of sheep. They’re thankfully a lot more
interesting than that. ‘Orion From The Street’ is a proggy indie rock track
that revolves around a hypnotic bass riff, punctuated by flourishes of arpeggiated
piano, electric guitar and loopy synth. The vocals meanwhile sound like Paul
McCartney. It’s the kind of music I wish Macca was making these days (instead of
abominations like ‘Fuh You’).
‘Tony’s Lottery’ – Life Drawings
Following their 2020 panic-buying anthem ‘Trolley Dash’
(which made my top tracks of the year), London rock group Life Drawings are
back with another TV-show-inspired song – this time loosely themed around Whose
Line Is It Anyway?. I say ‘loosely-themed’ because this track doesn’t
really have much of a theme at all. According to the band, it’s a ‘demonstration
of placeholder lyrics getting out of control’. The track sees frontman Jon Wood delivering a
series on nonsensical lines and meta quips like ‘this song isn’t very
popular/ and the synths are out of key’. It then ends with a spoken word narrative
of Tony Slattery’s escape into the woods ‘NEVER TO BE SEEN AGAIN!’. Some
people may find it too off-the-wall, but it’s right up my alley. The guitars
and keys meanwhile remind me of Guerilla Toss.
‘Ascension’ – There’s Talk
Of all the dream pop songs I’ve listened to, this might just
be the dreamiest. It practically out-dreams them all. It’s dreamier than Slowdive
or even Beach House. IT’S ALMOST AS DREAMY AS YOUR MAMA (I’m sorry, that was
childish). The slow rhythm and twinkling synths lull the listener in. And then
the vocals come in, slathered in reverb and delay, making them sound huge and
otherworldly. The hypnotic track comes off the Oakland trio’s new EP Great Falls.
‘This Man’ – Tobacco
This experimental synthpop number is the work of Tom Fec.
He’s the frontman of Black Moth Super Rainbow (who I’m not familiar with –
although I love the wacky band name) and Tobacco is his solo project. ‘This
Man’ is made up of squelchy squealing layers of synth and digitally distorted
vocals. There’s a dissonance to it that’s both ugly and alluring. The result is
like Daft Punk on acid.
THE WORST:
‘Masterpiece’ – DaBaby
If this garden variety blowjob anthem is DaBaby’s definition of a 'masterpiece', I think I’ll give the rest of his catalogue a miss.