Samuel James – Rapture
Genres don’t mean much nowadays. And all of the guards trying to keep some artists closed in the confines of one or not allowing others to enter are ridiculous and bound to fail.
Yeah, fine. There’s a reason to celebrate the places where certain genres emerged. For example, we wouldn’t have death metal without Sweden, black metal without Norway, or gothic rock without England. But can those countries own it?
Nah, and if anything, those who truly appreciate those genres out to be happy because of the fact that they’re being kept alive. A music genre isn’t some patriotic duty. Really, it’s a flavour that crafty artists can choose to add to their work.
Samuel James’ “Rapture” is an interesting example of how genres have stopped being much of a concert. What is the song but a mixture of modern pop, gothic, and metal, presented under corpse paint? The verse part, for example, could’ve just been part of a lo-fi bedroom pop hit. But the overall mood is purposely designed to be sinister and apocalyptic. Fine! Mix it all up, Sam! What we end up with is music with its ingredients added in a wholly different way.
In The Dark Park – Deep Dark Wood
There ain’t much that a large urban landscape can provide except for quiet and the peace of mind that goes along with it. This is why one of the biggest fantasies of any city dweller is to leave it all behind, at least for a while, and to get a new lease on life from living in a place where there are no car horns, tall buildings and people throwing their garbage out the windows.
In fact, the fantasy has been along for such a long time that various industries have spurted to support that. There are all the mountaineering clothes that you’re unlikely to need, sure. There are books about how to meditate in the same rhythm as a tree. And there is music. A lot of that music is quite awful and produced by Scandinavians who treat living in a forest in the same way that yogi priests treat levitation.
The only soundtrack to leaving the city for an uninhabited space is In The Dark Park’s’ “Deep Dark Wood.” The song starts out meditative enough. But this ain’t just the soundtrack of the forest breathing or anything like that. Before you know it, you’re running, and the music is chasing you along. The vocals on this song by In The Dark Park are amazing, a sort of modernised Siouxsie Sioux. It’s endlessly appealing, and its nerve really stops feeling eerie.
