The Pleasure Majenta – Gardens
Genre: Punk, Post-Punk, Indie Rock
Similar artists: The Birthday Party, Swans, The Fall
As we speak, there are thousands of clever, artsy bands trying to play their carefully crafted music over the sound of knives and forks desperately for a piece of pot roast. Do the musicians just pack it up and return back to their lonely room to construct more poems about the world’s inevitable doom? Some do, but most know that they do not have a choice.
However, naturally, artists are most satisfied, relatively speaking, when an audience is willing to give them their total, undisputed attention. This is becoming, as you, no doubt know, made more difficult by the brain-draining effects of social media. It’s hard to give anything more than 15 seconds of your time since Tik-Tok has claimed the minds of the youth for advertising purposes.
The Pleasure Majenta’s Gardens is a song built around the knowledge that silence is the best way to get someone to listen. The somber sound is, no doubt, designed to make even Nick Cave twitch. It’s not rock n’ roll, thank God, but rather the sound of the waves accompanying a dying poet waiting to launch themselves into the sea.
Neon Republik – Take Me Off My Guard
Genre: Post-Punk, Indie Rock
I haven’t bothered with watching much television for many years. But, I have a feeling that talent shows where people attempt their best karaoke are still popular. How could they not be? They appeal to the lowest common denominator.
And while those have produced pop stars that do possess terrific singing vocals, there is perhaps a reason for the fact that the majority of them enjoy short careers. Their sound and their all-important image strive toward perfection. It’s something that regular yobs like myself can’t understand or even respect for long.
Neon Republik’s Take me off my guard are glad to let their world-weary post-punk have them stick out like a sore thumb. This is a well-produced and bitterly sung tune about overstimulation. Where most singers are intent on convincing you of how great their lives are, the bloke from Neon Republik would like to remind you, for a second, how lousy all of our lives are. It pays to be a misanthrope sometimes.
