Often Easy – So Much So Lately
Similar artists: Lord Huron, Local Natives, Cage The Elephant, Alvvays, Father John Misty
Genre: Indie Folk, Indie Rock, Alternative Rock
Most of the people who need to advertise their calm disposition are lying to themselves and lying to the world. The majority of people, as it turns out, are stuck between being lost and knowing where they are and being desperate about it. It’s hard to find dudes as self-assured and alright with the world around them as the dudes in Often Easy.
The world loves a hero who does everything wrong yet somehow avoids the punishment of the heavens. Such people are rare. For most other people, sins get written in blood or etched into the geometry of their faces. The rock n’ roll art form is truly masterful when it can convince us that there are no consequences. Not really.
Often Easy’s “So Much So Lately” have been having a good time, and so has everybody else that’s been in their orbit. They’re not even surprised by it. They go with the breeze, dragged along by life at a slow, manageable pace. These kinds of events deserve a soundtrack, and nothing will do better than a kind of chilled-out, modern indie-folk singalong. Best of all, Often Easy will make you believe that the same things can just as well happen to you if you keep it cool.
sixten – Ocean In Me
Similar artists: JUNG, Cornelia Jakobs, Vargas & Lagola
Genre: Folk rock, Indie Pop
Many people who come from their holidays bring souvenirs that they end up placing on their desks, pasting on their refrigerators or taping to their wallets. Through this, they may superstitiously try to acquire the assurance that they will return to the place where they’ve just been. More realistically, however, they are looking to create a kind of meditative space.
sixten’s music attempts to do a similar thing, to create a holy space that the mind can visit at will. It’s a powerful spell when it works, and, best of all, it’s no parlour trick either. Many moments of our lives are spent juggling with the pressures and stress of the modern world. It’s not easy to tune it out. Those who can return to the beach or the forest where they once found peace are the lucky ones.
This is why sixten’s “Ocean In Me” offers listeners a three-minute journey that includes no bumps in the roads, no sharp turns, and that will end with reaching a clear destination. The effect of hearing this can only be amplified by breathing in and out rhythmically. Like pop music, not everyone believes in meditation at first. But its effects, once felt, can be marvellous. This is the kind of thing that this Swedish songwriter is attempting to capture here.
