Glass Spells – Empty Road
While driving itself has undergone some improvements in recent decades (self-driving cars, electric-powered vehicles) we are still a way to go from the imagined world of flying automobiles and interplanetary travel from the comfort of our earthbound transportation.
The roads haven’t much changed either. Much of Europe still contains enough craters adorning its highways to make the moon jealous. The typical sound of road music though has evolved in recent decades, and I’d argue it’s for the better.
The odd nostalgia-filled rocker will still blast Can’t drive 55 or Born to be wild. But, movies like Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive and the accompanying Kavinsky soundtrack have made dreamy, bass-driven, synthpop the new norm for road trip journeys.
Glass Spells’ Empty Road is the latest track to throw its hat into this exhaust-fume filled arena. Their sound and aesthetic are, certainly, convincing and enough to make you yearn for a cruise through the streets pre-lockdown hours.
FM Towns – Goddess of the Season
Goddess of the Season sort of sounds like the Zombies, the heavenly 1960s chamber-pop group, if they were a modern band and if they recorded they carefully arranged music in one of the band members’ bedroom.
The 60s were, after all, the dawn of the psychedelic-era. What does it say about us then that a song cut from the same cloth, made in the 2020s, would sound immensely more tense, bewildering, and psychedelic? I’m willing to bet that either the chemical refreshments have gotten more potent, or our increased sense of paranoia has escalated. Perhaps, it’s a mixture of both those things.
FM Towns’s Goddess of the Season is a beautiful, folk-like ballad stretched by interesting, lo-fi production. The vocal melodies function as the focal point of the tune. I admit I will be spending some time with this one. It certainly feels like music that warrants repeated listens.
