Luna Honey – Kerosene
It’s now a standard approach to use pop songs in the scenes of nearly every Hollywood movie. It’s come to be expected so much that comedies will use them ironically. Fine. What do they mean anyway? And how are they supposed to fit scenes meant to depict tremendous events when pop songs are designed, by definition, to be played on the radio for as many people as possible?
Pop music may not have quite the enthusiastic fans that it once did. But rest assured, the companies who run it are helping it expand. This kind of music is exported ever further and creates new standards where it goes. The only trouble is that, for the most part, it’s lifeless, averse to risk-taking and obsessed with its own mythology.
What the aforementioned movie scenes need is music that can bring the same intensity as the action being depicted. Are you showing a man being slashed with a knife by a friend, then give me music that will make me believe what I’m seeing? Give me something like Luna Honey’s “Kerosene.”
The theatrical, mysterious-sounding rock track features some of the most interesting and slightly unhinged vocal performances you will have heard in a while. This is music that echoes the sentiment of the classic psych-rock band that demons and angels could be summoned and past events brought before our very eyes through the power of performance.
Ignatius Reilly – Great Escape
There are few styles of music, and not many songwriters can just come up with tunes and lyrics that depict life as it is. For the most part, reality, is just not that interesting. It needs a bit of make-believe. It requires a bit of flair to be turned into something valuable. This is, after all, the greatest sandbox game, and the instructions aren’t written out clearly. You need to be able to make something up.
Most people, however, aren’t blessed with these gifts and know it. Reality hits them square in the face, not because it is mean, but because they are not equipped to spin the events that happen to them and turn them into a story. This is why they need movies, novels, and, especially, songs. These are art forms that work with mythology and are crafted as they go along.
Ignatius Reilly’s “Great Escape” isn’t just a plain blues number. It’s an invitation through a rabbit hole, through an imaginary world where every plain object or character means something more than what you can see when you first catch it from the corner of your eye. Nah, Ignatius Reilly has more in common with bands like Black Rebel Motorcycle Band and the other dark psychedelic-rock bands. These are sounds about the world as it could be, not as it is.
