
Lyan Casper – Summerradio
Trendy music and the people who make it tend to get a few editorial pieces written about them, a few flashy photos strategically placed in magazines and blogs, and the endorsement of people whose music was once trendy. Before you know it’s all gone. In fact, usually, it takes at least a decade or so before someone remembers to add these musicians to a “Whatever Happened” file.
The music that does seem to continuously draw people in is the one that tricks you into believing two things: a. that you, too, could’ve made these songs and b. that, in fact, anything in the world is possible. It’s a particular kind of trick, a sort of magic that is reserved almost exclusively for the world of pop songs. Nothing other than it, nothing legal anyway, can change your disposition or your opinion of the world as quickly.
Lyan Casper is very daring and confident about the latest single, “Summerradio.” First, Casper introduces a kind of romanticism that almost feels out of place in the overexposed world of today. Secondly, the artist has the nerve to mix ideas belonging to 60s psychedelic rock with a groove that is reminiscent of Sade. The result? Music that invites you over and blurs the distinction between dream and reality.
The Stone Apes – Ghost
Pop songs make us expect and demand too much of the world. I’m not saying that your father or high-school principal were right and that, indeed, they brought up generations of softies. What I am saying is that pop music has created the expectation that life will have a point. It’s made us think that either hard work or laziness will be rewarded with some revelations or, at the very least, some entertainment.
The Stone Apes’ “Ghost” sounds like Arctic Monkeys’ inevitable take on progressive rock music. It’s journey music that, just like Kafka’s bohemian castle, only leaves with a glimpse of what could be, but without any reliable map to the destination. The Stone Apes show commitment in delivering to the audience hints of gorgeous things but no actual relief. Just like life, there’s plenty going on, and nobody shows up with a clapperboard to yell “Cut” and prepare you for your close-up.