Rain House – Mona Lisa
I wouldn’t trust Hollywood movies about musicians. Contrary to the classic montage showing these musicians advancing from playing clubs to headlining festivals and having their egos balloon, most artists are not that way. Most band members are reserved, few of them interview well, not all of them are comfortable having photos taken of themselves, and many don’t even tell their friends that they’re in a band.
Why bother, then? Well, because most artists want to find a way to communicate with the world in spite of their reservations. And although there are some groups and performers like Bono or Chris Martin who wake up believing that the world must hear them sing every day, most musicians are blessed with more humility and, essentially, a working pair of ears.
The thing about American group Rain House, on their single “Mona Lisa,” is that it seems to be made up of shy musicians who desperately want to let you in on a secret. There’s magic there, and the reason why songs like “Ode to My Family” by The Cranberries, a clear influence, are so powerful. Rain House’s music possesses an understated beauty. It’s as if every line of the song comes with great difficulty, as if the weight of the words is overbearing. Bono and Martin wish they were this subtle or deep.
Sea Lemon – Crystals (feat. Benjamin Gibbard)
There’s just too much information available to properly understand the world or anything of importance in it. We just see too many things from the moment that we wake up. And that’s before we open up our computers or phones and have even more meaningless info beamed into our eyes and noggins. To get anything out of the experience of being alive, we should blind ourselves once in a while.
That’s why most rock concerts happen in the dark if they can help it. Have you ever seen one of the scary heavy metal bands play at noon before a festival crowd? Dreadful stuff. The fact that people don’t ask for a refund is just down to metal fans’ inherent politeness. Nah, these sounds can only be listened to in the dark with one big light fixed on the person singing the songs.
Seam Lemon’s “Crystals,” a song featuring Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie fame, is a song that feels written and recorded with most of the lights off. And the musicians would prefer it if you chose to enjoy it in the same way. This may make it hard to move around your room, but it will also erase some of the nasty details that chase away the all-important haze covering the song. Some things are best understood when there’s enough silence around them to make them make sense, and most good music is that way, too.
