Darling Strangers – Soundwaves
Genre: Progressive Rock, Classic Rock, Psychedelic Rock
There’s no way for an artist to avoid having a relationship with the present. Music, whose success is governed so tightly by trends and the public’s changing preferences, is no exception. The vast majority of musical artists live in the present. They need hits. The best way to get it is to try and replicate the styles that brought success to others before them.
But trends come and quickly go. The artists who are determined to create a legacy do not live in the present. They are fascinated with what the future or the past have to teach us. The latter is particularly interesting. Retro artists tell the world that they reject trends and they’ll fight for values that aren’t in vogue but ought to be.
Darling Strangers’ “Soundwaves” is meant to remind you of your favourite classic hard-rock records, but the musicians aren’t simply playing the nostalgia card. No, they’re keeping a straight face as they blaze to the song as if this kind of style was just as popular with radio stations and the record-buying public as it was back in the late 70s.
Their conviction is such that it may just help make you believe. Equipped with Michael Schenker-like riffs and a desire to soundtrack your car journeys, there’s something charming about Darling Strangers’ dedication to rock’s glorious past.
Faraways SWE – Frozen Moon
Genre: Psychedelic Rock
People get all sorts of crazy notions when they’re freezing and sitting all by themselves. In fact, some might argue that the general lack of creativity in modern music might be a product of the fact that artists are simply too socially accepted nowadays. For those looking to disconnect briefly, but swiftly, from it all, living it out in Scandinavia might just do the trick.
Make no mistake about it. There exists a real romantic view of what Northern European music can produce. Yet, strangely, the same cannot be said about records made out in Yukon or in Alaska. It must all have to do with Sweden’s role in the world and its history, combined with the fact that living there is guaranteed to get you no friends but allow you to acquire some of the aforementioned crazy notions.
Long Scandinavian winters seem to carry with them all sorts of mysteries and questions. Faraways SWE’s “Frozen Moon” is imbued with that atmosphere. It’s a song that seems conceived out in a frozen wooden shack back in the dark forests. It’s both unsettling and alluring. And while Sweden, with its harsh climate and politics modelled on communism, isn’t known to make its residents smile too often, can certainly produce psychedelia-drenched sounds of the greatest kind. Faraways SWE is a good example of that.
