Tarul – In the dark (Of all the stolen faces)
There might not be anyone out there for you. Just think about the odds for a second. But don’t despair. There certainly has to be a song out there for how you feel at this very moment. There needs to be one songwriter who’s dealt with the same precise emotions and put them all into a song. Just think of the odds of that for a second? They’re pretty good! Tarul might just have the right way for the way that you feel right now.
How do I know? Well, just how many things are worth writing about? Everyone loves a good bagel and coffee, but there’s a song for the ages on the topic. Plenty of songs about love and heartbreak, though. The formula’s been sharpened. Besides, how many things are there to feel? Not that many besides happiness, despair and boredom. Everything else is just a mix of these.
Tarul’s “In the dark (Of all the stolen faces)” is music for that tricky moment that comes in between the sharp pain of ending a romantic relationship and the melancholy that comes with acceptance of the fact. This is music for the gloom that lies in between those. It’s an emo-tinged, slow-paced shoegaze that should fit right into your ear canal as you go about those long, lonely walks or drives. There might not be anything for you out there except for a song.
JLJR – The Rest of Your Life
By the time the musicians got into the studio, the best ideas were already gone. Sure, the recording equipment was state-of-the-art and the producer had gold records on the wall, but the ember of the idea was just an old memory, one that no longer had any warmth to it.
The recording studio was paid, though, and audiences wanted to hear new songs. From this moment onward, it was all about fitting bass lines to guitar chords and words to vocal melodies. It was all about getting a sound together that could work. JLJR would’ve been disgusted.
Surely, he’d feel that the best ideas need to be grabbed quickly. Without a doubt, just as the great musicians always did, they imagined their life out on the road, getting mud on their feet, holes in their pockets and a few nuggets of wisdom about this old life.
JLJR‘s “The Rest of Your Life” sounds recorded in haste. But that’s something worth celebrating. This is music recorded while running and refusing to sit still. It’s music about creating and identity and breaking it apart into tiny pieces that can no longer fit together in the same way. It’s lo-fi electro-rock. For all we know, it could’ve been recorded on a smartphone. Good! The song idea has had no time to cool down.
