Count The Clock – So Dumb
Dreams are a terrible thing. They just get our expectations up. When they’re really something worth remembering, those morning dreams, especially, always make you think that if you concentrate hard enough on positive emotions, you’ll be able to find the same things in real life. You step out of bed, put on your brave face, and by the time you’ve switched on the morning news, you know you’ve failed.
That’s why I don’t trust my memories anymore. I don’t go around thinking that some song I haven’t heard in years, or some book I once read a long time ago, was really ever that good. Suppose I actually interact with those things. I’m bound to be disappointed. This contrast between how good things could be and what they really are seems to be at the heart of Count The Clock’s music.
First of all, Count The Clock operates by a Brian Wilson-led philosophy that celestial sounds and the blessings of Heaven are just one more melody away. And, indeed, “So Dumb” benefits from the kind of soft, loving touch that can make pop music sound absolutely glorious. However, the song also seems to tell the tale of illusions, of getting your hopes up and having them crushed. It’s heavenly bliss vs. cold reality again. But, as you soak in some of those melodies, doesn’t it make you want to try and believe for one more morning?
Lana Leone – Isabell
People love the things that they cannot have, or, at least, the things that they cannot have right away. Take that motivation away, by any strategy you can implement, and you’ll simply ruin the vast majority of people.
When governments finally implement a universal salary, people will be knocking on the doors of their offices, asking them to do some work for free. When they finally figure out how to make folks live forever, many of them will find a way to get rid of themselves through sheer panic.
Every great payoff deserves some effort, and every great story deserves a long, mysterious middle part where it feels like things aren’t going to work out. But what if you take out the start and the conclusion? That’s what Lana Leone does with her mysterious, aching sound.
What is Lana Leone’s “Isabell”? You don’t need a lyrics booklet to know; you just need to let the sound of the song wash over you. These dramatic alt-rock/shoegaze feels like the soundtrack to a love affair that will never properly get started and can never end. It’s the sound of a perpetual wait for a bliss that will never come. It feels endless, almost unbearable, a rare quality for a song.
