Slowdust – keeper of the high
Similar artists: Duster, Helvetia
Genre: Shoegaze, Lo-fi Rock, Indie Rock
People admire speed and living on the edge. And that reality is just as well reflected in modern music. Songs about nearly flying off a cliff or choking on your own vomit tend to do well. Just look at Motley Crue’s back catalogue. And musicians with the chops to destabilize a metronome are wonderfully respected. Just look at all the guitar virtuosos of the late 1980s.
But living calmly and balanced is undervalued. Master yogis and Björn Borg never have their heart race regardless of events. Presidents of countries have to make decisions for millions of people while under terrible stress. Magnus Carlsen can beat a computer at chess while downing Guinness. And the most impressive rock bands keep the BPM of their songs as close to a tortoise’s pace as possible.
It’s the speed, or rather the lack of it, that helps make Slowdust’s “keeper of the high” impressive. The continuous, slow pace of the track makes this work as a kind of meditation on loneliness and sadness. But this ain’t a maze. The song is a construction that is easy to understand, straight, and predictably designed, yet without any deviations from its trajectory. It’s easy to get swallowed up by Slowdust’s sound.
The Lovebeams – Little Seed
Similar artists: The Jesus and Mary Chain, Spiritualized, Lush, Ride
Genre: Shoegaze, Indie Rock, Alternative Rock
Whenever the world runs into trouble, strange, often violent ideas are suggested as ways to fix it. The public, scared of the events, buys in. It’s no coincidence that these are the moments when terrible demagogues are freely elected into office. It’s no coincidence that this is the time when extremist dogma is promoted on the streets of major cities.
Do we expect artists to just be above this all? Yes, we do. As far as the public should be concerned, the artists have the right to remain children and behave this way through it all. We need it! What the world wants is for them to dream away, to remember where hope was the energy that moved things forward and to help those who need some hope remember it.
The Lovebeams’s “Little Seed” is a debut release that is drenched in a sweet romantic afterglow and in tender, psychedelic-rock instrumentation. Notice the sweetness of the melodies, the innocence of the lyrics, and the dedication to psych-rock’s desire to create a secret world within a world. What else can you do in times of craziness? Just follow the crazy rhetoric instead. I don’t think so.
