SEEK/SCAN

It is rarely, if ever easy to lose someone regardless of circumstance. A failed romance; a broken friendship; a death in the family. What exactly has been lost is irrelevant in “Too Much.” Whatever was once there has been replaced with a maddening, hopeless sense of loss and incomprehensible guilt. 

Short of inhabiting another person’s head, our ability to understand someone is always going to be imperfect. Often it is a struggle to simply understand ourselves, let alone the complexities of a separate life we can only witness secondhand and attempt to draw what conclusions we may.

This inability to ever truly know someone becomes unbearable once you discover they are leaving, and everything you thought you knew of them is suddenly called into question. The music video for “Too Much” reflects this haze, consisting entirely of a white goop falling backwards off a woman’s head. Beneath the liquid her features are unrecognizable and blank. She becomes a shell of the person underneath seen now only in the brief moments when the shell breaks and reveals an eye, a mouth, a sign that there is still a person underneath but you are no longer allowed to see them.

Even more, what you thought you knew about yourself - the one person you’ll ever be able to see in full gross detail - becomes equally suspect. How much was your fault? Did you try to hard, or not hard enough? Who is going to take this blame so the other can sleep at night?

Could I make it more clear? Could I give you more time? Did I say enough Or did I say too much?

“Too Much” never arrives at any answers to the questions it poses. Ultimately, they are not questions with answers, but a rhetorical mind fuck that goes around and around and around until either you invent answers to satisfy yourself, or break under the inability to be satisfied by half truths and questions you didn’t get to ask. 

We have lost some of the greatest performers of our time with the passing of David Bowie, Prince, Alan Rickman, and so many more whose names have been appended to a list that keeps growing. We have lost over 800 people to police brutality, many of them innocent black men killed by a racism we continue to believe doesn’t still exist. ISIS continues to rain terror down upon cities across the globe, and the ongoing conflicts in Syria and Turkey have displaced and killed more than we will likely ever be able to fully know. Add to that an election which has spiraled into a madness previously only known to cyberpunk fiction, and 2016 begins to look not only like a bad year but the beginning of even worse years to come.

So when Ra Ra Riot proclaims it’s “the year of absolutely loving,” I laugh. I laugh because Absolutely is so detached from the colossal mess that has been 2016, and yet works as well as the year’s soundtrack. It is a song of blissful, carefree optimism, that when placed in the context of 2016′s snowballing calamities provides such a dramatic juxtaposition as to almost render both the song and year comical. But in the same instant I want to laugh, I find myself on the verge of tears.

As much as I want to distance myself from the terror that seems to have reached to every corner of the globe, it is impossible and an insult to those who are suffering through it to do so. The theatrics of news coverage, of this election, of the insane ramblings of the racist/transphobic/misogynistic, make it all too easy to view the world’s horror with a voyeuristic distance. Taking the time to actually sit and consider the lives lost, the families separated, and the people who continue to be discriminated against or even killed because of who they are is deeply saddening. But it is a knowledge that is necessary.

Honeybody is a bouncy, playful love song the likes of which few artists can pull off with any sense of sincerity. But as a prolific purveyor of esoteric metaphors and affectionate turns of phrase, Kishi Bashi sounds entirely at home asking his lover to play board games before shifting into a cheesy and utterly charming series of prolonged oooooohs.

Kishi Bashi excels at quirky love songs, but Honeybody may be his most sublime. It lacks the abstractions of his prior work while retaining the lovable goofiness. It almost begs you do dance, to grab a lover and move your feet no matter how silly you look. Because life’s too short to care if you’re a dork, and often, it’s a lot more fun if you are.

All of this applied to I Want You, closing track of Marian Hill’s Act One, released earlier this year. It’s more playful and upbeat than many of her tracks, but still a far cry from a radio-friendly pop banger. Melvv’s remix changes this, tearing the track open and letting it breathe. His remix aligns I Want You closer to the faux-1940′s swing of the Great Gaspy film soundtrack, or a less exuberant Caravan Palace. Where the original slowly slid and gyrated, Melvv’s version bounces and grooves.

All of this is not to say either version is better than the other. Rather, they each create their own mood, preserving the soul of the track as it is wrapped and embellished for a different atmosphere. What is universal to both tracks is a resounding sense of fun; seen through different eyes, but no less resonate.

Taste recalls self-discovery. The act of finding everything you held to be true to be incomplete and broken, like so many parts of yourself you tried and failed to fill with someone else’s love. It’s a journey to self-affirmation and apologies; of degradation and rebirth; of sex and love and realizing there’s something more.

This isn’t exactly what Lucy Dacus is singing about, but I can’t help but hear a similar plea to escape from her self-created personality trait. We all love categorizing things, be they books or shoes or decorative refrigerator magnets, but when we apply this habit toward people things can get ugly. I will briefly sidestep the obvious examples of race and gender stereotyping, as those present their own complex issues beyond the scope of this post, but even if unintentionally we can often get in the habit of assembling our own cartoon group out of recognizable traits which must then define us.

I don’t wanna be funny anymore I got a too short skirt Maybe I can be the cute one

I’ve always been a fan of dorky “authentic” hipster romances, but I never realized people could actually be so ridiculous in love until I found myself in one. Hands Down captures the enchanting mundanity of an everyday romance. The Greeting Committee’s spunky ode to awkward romance recognizes the way tiny things because enormous when they’re with them, because all you want to do is show them how much you care but words will never suffice. So you write silly songs and go on silly dates and make a fool of yourself for them, because you realize all that time spent trying to be cool and aloof - it was pointless.

Sound effects circa 1960′s science fiction grace the track’s exterior as more human concerns are discussed in lyrics nearly subdued beyond comprehension. As is often the case, STRFKR has once again created a song that seems to long for the infinity of space as it laments gravity’s hold. Tape Machine is an 80′s pop hit and an existential crisis rolled into one, and the result is something to be lost in.

Listening to Messenger of the Gods, I was struck for the innumerable time at how incredible Mercury was and how sad it is to have lost him so prematurely. His charisma and musical enthusiasm is astounding, as at home belting out 80′s pop songs as operatic ballads. Though this release deliberately puts Mercury at the center of each track, I would be hard pressed to find any song he performed on in which the entire piece didn’t immediately center onto him. His presence is magnetic and awestriking. I can scarcely conjure up a modern artist that can match his ability, as even those who can keep pace with his voice are immediately lost when put up against his raw energy.

Messenger of the Gods is top to bottom a marvelous collection, jumping from isolated but optimistic opener Living on My Own to the exceedingly dramatic The Great Pretender, which in many ways reads as an outward acknowledgement of the struggle Mercury faced with the social taboo of his bisexuality. The collection extends across a musical expanse only Mercury could travel, and following him across it is as glorious and inspiring as it is sad in its finality.

Freddie Mercury will likely continue to be a name leveraged by record companies until it has lost all significance in the public sphere, but his musical doesn’t have to become the depressing result of overzealous reproduction. Messenger of the Gods is cashing in on Mercury’s name and date of birth, but looking beyond its posthumous release, it remains a beautiful collection that remains as affecting today as when its tracks were first released. I have done a pitiful job paying tribute to one of the most impactful artists to have ever lived, but Mercury’s music speaks for itself, honest and earnest and the closest thing to magic we’ve likely ever known.

I’ll give you a moment to finish laughing or shaking your head. The antisocial and introverted can check out now, if they haven’t already. I cannot speak for everyone, and even as I attempt to make grandiose generalizations, I recognize that some people simply do not care as much about other people as much as living life for themselves, and I totally respect that. But I can’t buy into it. I can’t feel that a place is significant without acknowledging that it only became such due to those who came before and made it what it is. I can’t see the importance of experiencing something, unless I have someone to share it with, or better yet experience it with together. Life - yes, I’m plunging straight into existentialism - is about connecting with someone or multiple someones, and in doing attempt to create some meaning together within these infinite cosmos.

Now, where am I going with this? Home, that is to say Islandis’ 2015 alt hit. It’s entirely possible Islandis’ simply liked the idea of a song made up of a globetrotting vernacular (Johnny Cash, this is not, but there’s a thin kinship), but I like to imagine Home is not solely about the places named, but the understanding that it ultimately isn’t about them. It’s about having been there together, to have had that adventure together, that it becomes meaningful. The dissonant guitar riff is nice, and the track as a whole has a swaying summertime groove, but it’s the chorus that I keep coming back to. Specifically a single line: “...and i've seen Paris, and you've seen Rome, but it don't mean shit 'til we get home.”

The Derevolutions are wryly entertaining despite making music that feels antithetical to the tropes of fun music. There’s no sing-song chorus, no clinically professional post-processing, no optimistic takeaway. Just two people, a simple beat, some chords, and a feeling of intense human frustration. It’s cathartic for possibly the worst reasons, but cathartic all the same.

Oh I'm so sorry I said We're never ever ever Gonna last ‘till the end Things, please forget what I said We're never ever ever Gonna last ‘till the end

Maybe RCVR’s authenticity is on account of featuring an actual 80′s pop star, Debbie Gibson. Her contribution is a brilliant counterpart for Jonathan Bates’ strong and unwavering voice, adding highs and contrast to a track that is already overflowing with hard to anticipate variety. RCVR is a track to be soaked in. A Track to let wash over you, lift you up, pull you into its world, and dance to until the sub blows out.