Pressyes – Radio 5 (feat. Nature Swim)
Similar artists: Khruangbin, Jungle, Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Genre: Indie Rock, Indie Pop, Dream Pop
The things that really make you want to go out into the world and start searching, don’t really exist. The girls you see in the beer ads don’t exist. Highly touristic sights never look the same nce you get to see them in person. And, seeking out prophets out in the vast corners of the world is only bound to disappoint your truth seeking self.
But it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t go looking. No, by all means, do your very best to see those places for themselves. Just remember that you need some strategies to make your journeys seem and feel worthwhile. For one thing, get ready to use those illusions in your favour. Soak up the travel ads. Read the books praising those places. And, by all means, play the beautiful songs that make the places seem more magical than they really are.
Pressyes’ “Radio 5” is a gentle psych-pop ditty about a place that doesn’t exist. Nor could it. This is written in the cold and unfriendly world of Vienna, Austria, a town that sends people into fits of madness, not into a Summery daze. Still, the music recorded here has the softness and the incandescence to convince your brain it is written from a tropical island to which it is calling you to go. Pack up and forget about wasting luggage space on any sweaters!
Youth Sector – Here Comes The Fear
Similar artists: DEVO, Talking Heads, Modest Mouse, Parquet Courts
Genre: Indie Rock, Indie Pop
Music artists who achieve success possess the kind of ego that would make kings and queens of older days blush. Rock stars are made not just by a fortuitous twist of fate but by a belief that they are better than the rest. But they get sad, too. And because they are who they think they are, they make grand statements meant to make the public weep for their vulnerability.
All of the great rockstars have at least one album about being misunderstood and depressed. And, the vast majority of them are impossible to si through. Maybe it’s because they fail to connect to the condition of the common man. Maybe it’s because most of what a rockstar thinks is sad, but it’sn’t really. But, most likely, it is because they aren’t very entertaining, and that’s the only reason why we keep pop musicians around.
Youth Sector aren’t about to fall into the trap of boring us with their problems. No, they want to entertain us with them. “Here Comes The Fear” sounds like Pulp covering Devo for a Broadway musical. It’s pleasantly dorky, annoyingly jolly, and it talks about anxieties set about ruining your life. It’s hard to imagine anyone doing a nicer job singing about the things that choke the living daylights out of you. But that’s how you get people to relate. You get them to sing a jingle.
