There are plenty of strange jobs out there. Writing music in hopes of having it connect with audiences is one of them. Things become particularly difficult when there are expectations. Fans don’t simply want a few good songs. They want songs that reveal something about themselves and, in this way, something about their own lives.
Plenty of great songwriters and musicians have been confronted with these problems. Sure, any competent musician can play a blazing solo, sing beautifully, or come up with a song, provided they’ve studied enough. But music as merely a series of notes put together is just an exercise. It’s the music that says something about the world that is worth having fans.
sixten’s “Misemotional” is the Scandipop group’s second EP. As the name suggests, it is a committed effort to lift the lid on what the two musicians have gone through since their debut. But, for the most part, this is not done through traditional storytelling. Sixten believe that they can share their stories when they help their audience feel what they do.
Title track and opener, “Misemotional”, is a mix of pleasing pop, bittersweet vocals and quotable melodies. It describes daily life as a journey of travelling from the most fiery sentiments to glacier-like coldness.
If anything, this is a modern pop record that speaks particularly about the life of modern Northern Europeans in which respectability and common sense, traditionally, tell how emotions must be bottled up.
“Losing Game” is a shimmering pop-rock tune about the trials and tribulations of love. Meanwhile, the musical dynamics of “Atlantic” embrace indie-pop while the vocals speak of a gigantic flood of feelings.
In fact, the “Misemotional” EP reads like the diary of young people learning to deal with their impulses. This becomes obvious in songs like “Ocean in Me” and the excellent, country-tinged “Thrown Down.”
Where does it all leave us? The duo of sixten are young, impressionable, and feel the burden of the world on their shoulders. But they are not naive. The closing track, “Living Comes with Dying,” is a sendoff and a reminder of how the sweetness of Summer days will have to find its balance with the cold Winter nights. It almost sounds like sixten have made their peace with it.
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