
Shannon Clark And The Sugar – The Mountain
Genre: Americana, Alt-Country
One of the main jobs of a songwriter is to make the ordinary seem outstanding. A lot of the most important songwriters in the history of pop-rock have had a glorious knack for making the lives of everyday people seem gloriously dramatic.
Little of this exists today. Modern performers want to be presented as wholly different from their audiences. Their stories are not the same. And, certainly, the problems created by the wealth that they project are not the same.
It might make for a new brand of entertainment and even some strange character studies, but it says very little about the real world. There isn’t much that regular folks can take away and glue to their own existence.
Shannon Clark And The Sugar’s The Mountain makes the regular grind of everyday living appear glorious, grandiose, and worthwhile. It uses the metaphor of climbing toward the summit, and the beautiful vocals of the performers to provide a reason to find courage. Finally, here’s a song for everyone.
KOALA BAR – The Carnival
Similar artists: Bon Iver, Phoebe Bridgers, The XX, Sufjan Stevens, Gregory Alan Isakov, Deportees
Genre: Indie Rock, Indie Pop
Rock music, throughout its varieties, is one of the few modern art forms that does not come with instructions. You’re usually told how you should watch a movie, what you need to know to enjoy a book, or how far you should stand to properly be able to judge a painting.
When it comes to guitar-driven music, it’s a free-for-all. Sure, artists and fans seem to naturally find a connection. Not everyone, however, consumes the content in quite the same way.
A very large segment of the audience is looking for a friend from their pop-rock music. They’re looking for sounds to make them feel alright about falling asleep and make them feel hopeful when waking.
KOALA BAR’s The Carnival is the kind of music that some listeners will instinctively latch on to, like the words of wisdom of an old friend. This is what it is designed to do, after all. People may receive this differently, but surely, the ones who’ll love it the most are the ones that will leave this to color the silence of their rooms.
Thank you for the nice write up!