House wishing. What a hobby to have! What a way to spend the hours of the day! And it’s getting more and more popular with millions walking through fancy, ungated neighbourhoods, looking up at the residences of what they can only assume are people better off than they are, and wishing that this particular house belonged to them.
If you trust any of the “law of attraction” gurus, the next steps are obvious. Print a picture of the house and place it on your wishing wall. Next, walk by each house. Finally, move into the house and really test out the law of attraction.
This is, essentially, what Eduard Banulescu has been doing with his most recent collection of songs. “Things You Wouldn’t Believe” sounds like music about house sitting without the owner’s knowledge. They sound like tunes made whistled late at night through the halls of creepy mansions placed by the water in some faraway land that’s seen an equal measure of enrichment opportunities and war fears.
Take the opening track, and recently released single, “Winning Ticket.” In it, the songwriter talks about “being plucked from the general public” and being awarded a ticket to a life of ease and abundance. But, listen closer, and can you be sure he’s singing about himself? No, this is a song about the ones who manage to create chaos, profit from it, and come out unscathed. That’s no longer the job of a rock singer.
On the nervous tick funk of “Can’t Avoid the Truth Forever,” Eduard Banulescu embodies a character who’s spent a successful life skirting past harsh realities. Surely, things can’t always stay that way? Surely, that house on the hill doesn’t just pay for itself?
On the nearly prog-rock oriented, “Takes a Lot,” the main character is one willing to wag his finger at the world and promise retribution if not afforded the resources they need. And, on “That’s a Guarantee,” Banulescu fashions a minimalist, manic love song that happens outside of time and space.
Where does this leave us? Still watching the big, gloomy mansions and pushing reality away. Is there any other way to bend it to one’s will? “Treason,” the song that closes out the “Things You Wouldn’t Believe” EP, brings Thin Lizzy-like guitar riffs to a punk-rock score. It’s a song about forcing yourself to fit in. It’s a song about being in league with traitors and perverts. Is this the price paid for a place up on that tall hill? Crashing on people’s couches is still honest then.
