Ogrom Circus – We Were Tonight
You take one more breath. You close your eyes for just a second to try and memorise it all. And, puff, just like that, it’s gone. The world doesn’t stay the same. Of course, it can’t!
In fact, it’s galloping toward a destination that you’re not fully aware of. You’re not on the invitation list. And, the very best of what you can do is to try to close your eyes again and see the world once more as you did that one time.
This is what German psych-rock band Ogrom Cricus has been doing. They’re using music as a method and tools that others have cast aside as their way to reach back into the past. The group’s sound is created using old equipment meant to give the songs a sweet warmth reminiscent of rock’s past glories.
There’s poetry in there as well. But much like the sound, it’s a poetry of lost innocence. “We Were Tonight” introduces modern indie-pop motifs by way of nostalgia. It’s an ode to the proverbial “blink and you’ll miss it moment.” It’s music meant to capture the past, hold it tight and never allow it to escape. If there’s anything that could succeed in this mission, it is music.
Strawflower – Last Slow Dance
Time moves quickly, and everyone’s got a place that they need to go, and we are all late to our appointments. It makes you breathe differently, walk like someone getting ready to do a marathon, and even your listening habits change because of this.
Put regular people under hypnosis and the place you’ll hear most of them going is one where time stands still, where every road leads to the same places and where there’s never any reason to rush.
Strawflower captures the wisdom of the masses. The band, and most people, when they dig deep enough, know that heaven, if it exists, is a lo-fi, self-filmed holiday movie. If heaven exists, things just move around in circles forever.
Strawflower’s “Last Slow Dance” feels like the soundtrack to a supernatural thriller about people getting suck into their holiday photos for all of eternity. What’s Top 40 radio like in this fantasy? Well, Buddy Holly’s still around and making surf-rock together with indie-rockers dressed all in black. Nobody wonders about the future. Everyone hears the same soothing sound.
