Séamus – Negative Space
It’s the same story over and over again. All of the great artists tell of a great amount of time that their childhood circumstances forced them to spend on their own. They all talk about the stories that they were forced to create in order to entertain themselves, the talents that they developed in order not to go insane from all the loneliness.
But nearly all of them talk with regret and nostalgia about, eventually, having to change their ways, about beginning to share their lives with others. The loneliest people write the best kinds of love songs. Perhaps it is because they are among the few who are not scared by being alone. Séamus certainly isn’t/.
“Negative Space” is a song about a romantic relationship slowly collapsing on itself and about how finding the guilty party is a task that won’t yield any results. But, you listen to the sound of it, and it could just as well be a tune about the world ending. It’s music for people who love time spent alone and question why life won’t offer them more of this. And, above everything, it’s a powerful sound that Séamus is working with.
Vivid Bloom – In Strange Places
It all happens slowly and then very suddenly, of course. This world’s given us a hell of a lot of comfort, and it’s found ways of charging us each time that we showed any kind of excitement. And, more recently, it’s not enough that our bodies are kept snug, safe and warm. Our brains, so prone to anxiety and to working overtime, have been given their own space in which to take a break.
We all feel, but it seems that it’s only artists that have a handle on how to properly state the problem. Maybe it takes a band like Vivid Bloom and little else to tell us the truth about what we’re doing to ourselves using technology. Maybe this is the greatest tool we’ve found to finally get rid of our humanity.
That being said, “In Strange Places” is no preachy sermon, nor is it a case of over-sloganeering. The music’s powerful, mysterious and lays into you like rain on top of a mountaintop. In fact, it’s music that might make you think of all the things in this natural world that you haven’t quite experienced yet, and why prioritising them might still be the way.
