#MusicMonday Review - May 2024

[osornios]

#MusicMonday is the hashtag I've been using for quite a while to share music recommendations from up-and-coming artists. Always fresh, and always different, trying to look for trends before they become one. You can check April's review for more music.

When tackling with otherwise difficult topics, this month's artists let their creativity flow to make music express their views. Give it a listen, and dive in, with a word from the artists themselves.
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The Wears – The Old Way

i'm lost in the city between your eyes
the streets take me home but i never arrive

maybe
i'm incapable of saving
whatever mess we create

Welcome to Stockport, England, our starting point, for an Indie Rock track that would like us to relive more simple times, with the one you once loved:

"So it was written shortly after a breakup, and it kinda summarizes that feeling of wanting to get back together but knowing deep down that the ship has sailed…

When you don't want to deal with the emotional aftermath, so you want to revert to The Old Way so to speak, where everything was just that bit easier.

It's the second single from our debut EP Atlas too, which carries on the story. It has a real chapter by chapter feel to it - and is a project we're really proud of."

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Sweat – Red Wave

I don't wanna deal with this today
But I guess Aunty Irma's here to stay
Can you please get the f out of my face
Cos' I'm surfing the red wave

If you're into Surf Rock, take a trip with me to Walyalup, Australia. As this band likes to say, you should put your goggles on, it might get messy:

"Giane the guitarist was playing around with new pedals (or likely a new guitar) and she made that classic wave sound and we were all like siiiiick. Let's totally make a beach sounding track with that sound.

I think we started mucking around with the words 'surfing the red wave' and then we had a moment where we were like "damn are we really going to be a girl band that writes about periods" and then we were like, yes, let's absolutely have a song where we scream about periods.

Other memorable moments is when we bonded over the "red hot poker" line because none of us knew that other people had felt that and it's very painful and weird. 🙃

It was so fun recording the this one because of the Beach Boys harmonies in the background."

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The Write-Ups – Poisoned Children

Neglected, rusted, abandoned town

Corroded, toxic, drink it down

Struggling, desperate people abound

It’s coming undone

Cognitively damaged, never the same

Crooks and liars avoiding the blame

Fiscal solvency, that’s what they claimed

From Australia, we fly to Flint, MI for a politically charged ska track about the water supply tragedy from 2014. When water's coming out all dirty and brown, something's not right:

"We're from Flint and all of us (except Dallas - lead guitar and vocals) lived through the water crisis. I (Dan - rhythm guitar and lead vocals) wanted to write a song about the water crises because those responsible haven't and likely won’t be held criminally accountable for their gross negligence that resulted in the deaths of multiple people and a whole generation of children in our community experiencing lead poisoning, which is a neurotoxin that stays in the body permanently, hindering cognitive development in children. These kids will be forever changed and Michigan's former Governor will never be brought to justice for the role he and members of his administration played in the water crisis.

A lot of the lyrics in the song are from a general perspective that could be held by any Flint resident who lived through the water crisis, especially those who were already struggling with poverty and a lack of access to quality housing and nutritious food.

But mainly, we're still incredibly angry that the culprits behind the water crisis will never be held accountable by our justice system, and that's a tragedy that we won't ever forget as a community.

The song itself was one of the first ones we wrote, but we had entirely different lyrics that Dallas wrote, about one of his childhood friends back home in Battle Creek, Michigan who fell into hard drug use and crime, but we started this band before Dallas started grad school out on the east coast for a Masters in Public Health program, and we weren't sure if he'd ever come back to where he could still make playing in the band work, so I asked if I could re-write the lyrics as I felt weird singing such a personal song that wasn't my story to tell, and I felt like we needed to write a song about the water crisis to get that anger out."

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Paytron Saint – Carmilla Roll

I have faded like the sun

Now my walking life has ever begun

No taste on my tongue

Far beneath this canopy

Lies a humble state but I don’t feel a thing

All needles and pins now baby

Pressed for virtue i was supposed to tell someone

But concentration goes I’m left outside undone

From Amber Valley in Derbyshire, England, we get an Alt Rock track that knows how age likes to fade you like the earth, and drifts you far from your place of birth. Ain't that the truth:

"The song is an introspective exploration on the plus sides of growing old. It actually started out when we were thinking about our live set and decided we needed a stronger opening song, Nick put the song together quite quickly and we spent a few months gigging it to iron out the creases."

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The Young Love Scene – KMFAC

I wanna run run run run wild and free

You got a love like heaven and it’s good to me

You wanna run run run run can’t you tell

I got a love like heaven but it hurts like hell

So baby don’t go now

I need you now

I don’t know why or how

I really need you now

For a different take on the Alt Rock scene, our last stop is Los Angeles, CA for a song about how the world is so cold without your loved one. Just don’t go, kiss my face and cry:

"I had the guitar riff and the beat for KMFAC before I had the lyrics. I was listening to the rough track and I knew I wanted to make people dance and cry at the same time, as David Byrne once said.

I honestly don't know where my song ideas come from sometimes - I remember starting with the concept of saying goodbye. I wrote the whole album while homeless in Los Angeles (crazy story!), and one thing I've noticed is that certain people in my life have become more distant as I've dealt with that.

I think the song ended up morphing into a song about loving someone that doesn't want to be with you anymore."

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Listen to them and much more on the complete Playlist

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See you next month!