The Melting Rabbits – Vortex
Similar artists: Forever Grey, This Cold Night, The Agnes Circle, Bat Nouveau, Drab Majesty
Genre: Post-Punk, Gothic / Dark Wave
There are only a few details that betray a person’s individuality. Block someone’s eyes and you won’t really recognize who they are. Change the natural inflexion of their voice, and you will erase their personality. These elements are important when in polite company and they are very important for pop stars trying to make an impression. This is why it’s fascinating to hear The Melting Rabbits eliminate them altogether.
It’s been a long, long time since pop music has experimented with anything of importance. The pop stars’ PR personnel will tell you differently, but they’re paid to lie. Sliding further into the underground, things aren’t much different. Most new bands are content to attempt and copy a format that suits them.
The Melting Rabbits’s “Vortex” is a fascinatingly chilling track because it has purposely cut out all of the elements that make a performer stand out. They’ve created real robotic, uncaring music. It’s devoid of theatricality. And while the production could be sharpened, you’d assume that expressionless aliens wouldn’t much care about those details either.
Sauna Senere – Nytårskrudt
Similar artists: Søn, Joe & The Shitboys, pære banal, Squid, shame
Genre: Skate Punk, Post-Punk
Everyone goes on about how people are the same everywhere. But that sounds incredibly depressing. Why would you want to go anywhere if people are just the same and if there’s nothing to be learned? It all sounds bland and uninspiring, as if we’re all just robots built on the assembly line of life.
Sauna Senere do their best to remind us that Northern Europeans certainly do not resemble anyone else from this world. There’s a melancholy to them, even to the Danes, the only Nordics to let smiling and day-drinking be acceptable behaviours in their society.
Sauna Senere’s “Nytårskrudt” sounds like visiting the mall on a hopelessly rainy Sunday afternoon. It’s all supposed to be a lot of fun, but there’s a tension in the air that cannot be denied. By avoiding musical cliches, Sauna Senere brings in elements of jazz, post-punk and psychedelia. In fact, this may just be music for mallrats obsessed with communicating with alien beings, both excited and paranoid.
