Bases – If You Let It
Genre: Indie Rock, Garage Rock, Alternative Rock
Similar artists: Arcade Fire, Chet Faker, The Flaming Lips, Johnny Cash
Bases create a highly modern hybrid of alternative, indie-pop, and comedy on the single If you let it.
It used to be that record labels would invent new genres based on the artists and resources they had at their disposal. The internet has created a new breed of comedy. And, naturally, it has created new breeds of music. Internet music is its own genre.
Try going back in time. I dare you! And, if you manage to try explaining various things to people enjoying life in the Western world only a few decades ago. I’m sure they’ll be able to understand what a smartphone does. I think that they’ll grasp most ideas about our digitalized way of life. Try to explain memes, and you’ll lose them.
In many ways, Bases’ If you let it is a product of its time, and couldn’t exist outside of it. It’s psychedelic pop music meant to elicit a giggle. It’s well constructed but irreverent. It feels like the last song that your Spotify playlist digs up after all modern indie classics have been played. Bases stand proudly for their era.
Nairolf – Lights & Shadows
Genre: Grunge, Shoegaze, Alternative Rock
Similar artists: Audioslave, Placebo
It’s hard to be observant nowadays. It’s hard to cherish sounds, images, ideas. There are too many of those about. Instinctively, we know that most of them do not matter. Out of all the songs that you’ll hear this year, and, there will likely be a lot of them, you won’t remember the vast majority.
The sound called by some post-grunge has a habit of cutting through. After all, the simple dynamics adopted by the original grunge bands had the exact same effect. They cut through a large, indistinguishable mess of pop sounds, and made the grunge musicians well-known throughout the world.
If these are strategies that have been used before, they can still prove highly effective. Nairolf proves this on Lights & Shadows. The Canadian songwriter is inspired by a solid collection of rock music and is up to no good. The sounds chosen are the ones that cut deepest. These are the sounds that will get the sound picked up out of a police line-up. Nairolf knows where are others have struck gold. That’s exactly where they’re heading.
