NEVERHOME – Amor Fati
I’ve a secret that I want to share. But you must promise not to tell, and not to overuse the information that I’m about to give you. Listen, whenever you want musical inspiration and are looking for something original, you should just listen very closely to Latin American music.
That’s because there’s so much of it, and lots of it is terrific, that it’s something which has never worn out its welcome. In fact, many would reckon that you can find traces of those rhythms brought over from Africa in just about any pop song ever written. NEVERHOME are likely to feel the same way.
At the same time, much of the Latin pop sounds that developed right alongside the Western 60s and 70s classics are relatively unknown outside of their home lands. There’s never been a better time to make those more popular.
NEVERHOME’s “Amor Fati” is a song written and performed by a North American band in the style of the pop-rock bossanova of 1960s Brazil. It’s a song of great warmth and tenderness. It’s a tune that, even in its gentleness, is driven by an undeniable groove. And it’s music created by drinking from a wellspring that’ll never run out.
Bouquet – Spellbreaker
At the heart of it, hypnosis was a bit of an elaborate, creative scam. The charismatic, opportunistic Franz Mesmer must’ve known exactly what he wanted to from the royals that he was claiming to cure through the use of “animal magnetism.”
But Mesmer himself, bless his cotton socks, must’ve been surprised by just how well the whole thing worked. He might’ve even observed that, not of his doing, some of his “methods” did actually rob recipients of their common sense. Bouquet’s “Spellbreaker” asserts that things have not changed much.
We’ve all grown weary and frightened of prolonged silences. This is why there’s always a song playing in our ears, and some talk-show hosts in front of our eyes. They all speak to a cadence meant to convince and overpower. But, when you’re forced to go back to the silence, how much of it all do you actually believe?
Bouquet’s “Spellbreaker” is a bare-bones, sensational piece of counter-hypnosis pop. It starts with the assumption that communiques beamed out to the world, including this song, are meant to lull audiences to sleep. But what for? And how much of ourselves is left once the sound’s turned off? Bouquet’s pleasant harmonies and heavenly minimalism dares to ask what’s left of the real us once we’ve been spoon-fed what to believe for so long.
