Rico Mindy – Gold Rush
Where do you go in your mind when you really need to escape reality, or is that just a skill that you’ve never been quite able to acquire? And, perhaps, even more importantly, where do your favourite songs help you go to in your imagination?
That must sound like a trifle, but in this day and age, you’d better ask yourself the serious questions. What will happen otherwise? Well, life, and all the great songs in it, will just pass you by in an endless carousel of soundtrack short-form videos, ads, choruses played on the radio and concerts where the band just plays the oldies.
Luckily, there are still bands willing to take your call, pack a bag, and take a long trip with you. Fortunately, there are still bands looking to open something in themselves and have a door open in your mind on the strength of just the right chords.
Rico Mindy’s “Gold Rush” takes a cue from the psych-loving, shoegaze-inspired Britpop groups of the 1990s and creates a moody, mystical-sounding pop record that feels like an invitation to leave all ugliness and tension behind and replace them. It’s travel music in the most profound sense, journey sounds for people still hopeful that the best is yet to come.
Darko’s Aufhebung – Chrysalide de l’air
As we speak, there are record label employees, however many that have remained, trying to work out how to budget the company’s budgets, how to increase profit, and, well, how to successfully make it through the winter before they need to start selling the furniture.
But it’s a temporary problem, I think. I’m sure that pop music will win out one way or another. Why am I so confident? Is my position at Alt77 giving me access to hidden information, or to sensational new bands that are about to do really special things?
Yes, there are fantastic bands that will challenge and entertain you, groups like Darko’s Aufhebung. But what bands like this have going for them, and always will, is the fact that they are able to arrest your attention fully and keep it there.
In a time when everyone is fighting to get you to focus on them for just a few moments, Darko’s Aufhebung has the good fortune of being capable of creating a sound that leaves you thinking about little else. “Chrysalide de l’air” is a song that utilises painfully tense shoegaze tactics, with the great relief of grungey, distorted chords. You’re likely to get lost in this sound, and isn’t that a mighty nice thing to have?
