Nalan – 59:1 (fiftynine to one)
The thing that most rockstars must be a bore to meet in real life. Do you actually think you’re going to meet one in the supermarket and that they’ll be the same way that they are on stage? Do you think they’ll start telling you about the songs they wrote?
The vast majority of them, I am confident, will be dull, lifeless chatters. You won’t be able to get anything of any importance out of them. They won’t even be able to tell you the places where they toured last year. They were just sort of along for the ride.
Nalan, on the other hand, is of the belief that a pop star should be in songs exactly the person that they are in all of the other hours in the day. The German singer brings honesty and emotion to her music that most others in her position would sacrifice for a chance of being cool.
In fact, parts of Nalan’s “59:1 (fiftynine to one)” almost seem improvised, off-the-cuff material. The song, at its heart, is a slow walk down old streets, along with the singer’s explanation of why all these places used to mean so much to them. The gentleness of the singing and the bittersweet, smart lyrics are what really sell it.
Sum and Substance – Mighty
Most of the people who’ve spent an enormous amount of hours mastering an instrument are pretty proud of themselves, and you can usually tell. Ask them something about a diminished minor chord, and they’ll probably laugh in your face.
Next, they’ll tell you to check out their course. You will, out of sheer curiosity, and find clips of them wearing sunglasses and a leather jacket in which they explain how these chords work while playing at a speed that makes it impossible to wrap your head around what’s going on.
Most virtuoso players like to show off. Very few of them actually write songs. They put together demonstrations instead. That’s why hearing Sum and Substance, musos with wounded souls, feels quite the rebellious gesture.
In fact, Sum and Substance’s single “Mighty” sounds like it’s captured the musicians and the person that they’re writing about in the middle of a deep personal crisis. Lightning-fast math-rock arpeggios go off in the distance like gigantic flares, but that’s only half the story. The rest of the song is about what life is worth and how to waste its potential. It’s quite the mix of skill and soul.
