
Shrimp Olympics – big planes (that i’m in)
Similar artists: Elliott Smith, The Beatles, R. Stevie Moore
Genre: Psychedelic Rock
Just what it takes to turn pro? In music, as in most other businesses, the rules seem to be the same. There’s a focus on speed of execution, efficiency, and on avoiding complaining whenever things get rough. This is how your favourite band tours the world, releases albums and charges you money to interact with them. It doesn’t sound very inspiring.
And, precisely because it doesn’t seem very exciting, the pros forget to mention these facts. We’d rather hear about Keith Richard getting his blood replaced with moonshine once every month than about Mick Jagger spending his entire day meeting with lawyers and ending it with a long yoga session. But who do you think signs checks in The Rolling Stones organisation?
I’d rather stay silly. I’d rather imagine that all rockstars are like the people responsible for Shrimp Olympics’ “big planes (that i’m in).” It’s music made without anyone’s permission and, most likely, with a few people downright opposing it. This is quirky, weird music that makes no sense to the kinds of people who either have no jobs or spend all of their dough on making DYI recordings. They may not get recruited for the majors any time soon, but they’re far too interesting in that anyway.
hesitant – melisma
Genre: Shoegaze, Alternative Rock
The more you live, the more you realize how few people actually care about what you do and even less about you telling them your troubles. Perhaps it’s a symptom of the times or just something that the burdens of life naturally made people be like. Faced with an uncaring world, it’s only natural that artists would dream of being able to make others feel empathy for their hurt and for their joys.
But they’ll have to tell a pretty good story. That’s the deal! It won’t even have to be a story with a beginning, middle and end. What the story must do, however, is get the audience feeling, for a while at least, that they’ve left the place where they were once the story began. People might be driven to egotism, and that’s precisely why they need an escape.
hesitant’s “melisma,” on the surface, is a beautifully decorated, shoegaze-influenced alt-rock song. Close your eyes, and you will be transported by the shimmering melodies and exploding guitars to a different world. But listen closer, and you’ll discover a song written as a consequence of deep pain and unresolved emotion. A well-crafted tune, “melisma” might just satisfy the trade-off and provide the reason for strangers to care as deeply for the subject matter as the people writing the music.