Flower and Pines – Parasite
What with all the technology now dominating our day-to-day lives, things have been turning medieval. A new era of enlightenment is very far on the horizon. But what seems to be approaching, for those willing to cast a glance out, are all sorts of misfortunes brought on by greed, hatred and superstition. If you thought that history books presented ridiculous characters whose devious actions made no sense, history is about to show you just how that happens.
Pop music doesn’t exactly know what to do in these kinds of times other than invite you to dance or summon the pop stars to deliver harshly worded tweets. But a time when an ancient, vile brand of abhorrence makes its way onto our daily news reports deserves its own kind of soundtrack. To make music for these kinds of events, the artists must deep their toes into tall rivers of blood first.
Flower and Pines are an extreme group. It’s hard to know what to make of them. Their music is an experiment on the human psyche. Are they like Laibach a comedic performance art group, or will they be leading the installation of the guillotines?
There’s no way of knowing. “Parasite” is mighty impressive, though. Inspired, perhaps, by Swans, Flower and Pines create a punishing sound filled with anxiety, uncertainty, and anger. Do you want to know what your future is going to look like when idiots vote self-interested, unenlightened demagogues into power? You got your soundtrack right here!
Renato Medeiros – Dias de Cachorro
I don’t hate radio pop music. I just find it easy to forget it quickly, and it’s not so much about the singing, melodies, or even the subject matter. It is mostly because of the fact that pop songs, especially modern ones, don’t move.
They’re lifeless creations. And, the format has travelled a mighty long while to finally become this static. With the success of the song conditioned on audiences singing along to the hook, things have to be glued in place pretty tightly.
Rock songs used to be a beautiful mess. They moved and made listeners want to groove along with them. Lyrics were about grand concepts. And they were played by people who looked like they travelled the world from town to town trying to get people to dance.
Renato Medeiros’ “Dias de Cachorro” is old-fashioned just in the sense that it works from the ground up, making sure listeners are swept up in a groove that’s assisted by 70s-styled fuzz-rock guitar. And while this sounds like the kind of retro road music, Medeiros is not talking down to his audiences. The song is about pressure and its importance in development. If that’s the kind of thing that ol’ psych-rock could produce, let’s have more of it!
