Caregiver – Reason
Genre: Indie Rock, Indie Pop
Similar artists: Phoebe Bridgers, Faye Webster, Mazzy Star
In sports, regularly, it takes years and years for records to be broken by a single person. After that, however, the same record that has stood as an unpassable bridge for so long is broken by dozens upon dozens of people. Surely, it is not just the ability of the athletes that help in creating these new borders for human excellency, right?
The same happens in art and in entertainment. One day you find yourself feeling alone and unrepresented by the modern bards. Then someone appears with all the ideas that seem to speak directly to your heart. And, once one of these artists shows the way, a lot of others instinctively feel like they have the freedom to attempt to provide a similar kind of honesty.
Caregiver’s Reason is a song that comes from a new pop movement, one that embraces honesty, humor, and a willingness to dissect one’s emotions. Like other artists in this group, it flies under the sails of modern folk music. But, make no mistake, there are elements of pop and rock that give the song, from a musical standpoint, an easy-going, balanced feel. Caregiver’s music is a new form of pop music, truthful, but dramatic, collected, but verging on the hysterical. It’s a lot like life which is not something that you can usually say about pop music.
Noverb – Christmas in July
Genre: Punk, Indie Rock, Alternative Rock
They say, and I tend to believe them, that it’s the adults supervising children that encourage or extinguish the young ones’ imaginations. This has a pretty final ring to it, but if you are to trust psychologists, people who have read much more on the subject than you or me, that is likely to be true. Kids don’t know when they are embarrassing themselves, and it may actually work to their benefit if they never do.
Later, clearly, if they haven’t fallen in line, it is the schools and then the jobs that break any semblance of free, exploratory thinking from the minds of the young adults. These are not places where playing is encouraging. It is believed, erroneously, that one can’t be doing work of any merit if it also involves some mocking about, and taking some chances that don’t always work.
It is this why I believe people should be encouraged to pursue artistic interests. Noverb’s Christmas in July is a non-sensical piece of horror-pop and works very well. This is the kind of song that an experienced songwriter might come up with if handed an instrument just at the very second that they wake up. It’s strange, a bit of a treat, and sounds like nightmare-obsessed kids making sense of their colored building blocks.
