1. Perfume Genius - Dark Parts
This one happens to have a frustratingly superfluous combination of gorgeous music and haunting lyrics. I think that the driving piano and echoing, lifting ohh-oh-ohhs, typically what I'd associate with a sense of exultation and glorification, are an almost disquieting pairing with the pain and sorrow sewn into the first verse. Before the love and protection and safety of the following verses breaks through, it's the saddest thing in the world, calling to mind images of vast, empty cathedrals and violated spirits ascending to infinity. But as I said, the Protector steps in and takes the pain and the corruption and the filth away and the music drops and the lyrics with them and it's just the sound of knowing you're safe. This song rules.
2. Meursault - Another
This one tends to be one of those songs that I just listen to because it's calming and Neil Pennycook's voice is just so ethereal and mesmerizing to me. So I throw this one into the "pretty music", column but giving it a listen and paying some actual attention to the lyrics, this song really does mean a lot more to me than I realized it did. I can relate so painfully to telling myself that "this is the thing" and then tiring of it after a few months. And whether it's days or relationships or passions or ice cream cones. There's always another.
3. Heartless Bastards - Into the Open
This is kind of an odd one out. There's nothing particularaly special to me about the composition of either the music or the lyrics, I just really love the bluesy guitar tone and the immense power of Erika Wennerstrom's voice.
4. Mono & World's End Girlfriend - Part 5
It goes without saying that the lyrics in this one are nothing to write home about (hehe). But it doesn't need them. In the same post-rock pantheon as Codes in the Clouds, the Album Leaf, Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai, Stars of the Lid, etc. Put on some rain sound effects, close your eyes, and just drift along the soundscape this stuff paints for you.
5. Fat City Reprise - Long Gone
This used to be one of those songs in the line of Stars by The Love Language that I mentioned in the last entry. Every time I sat down at my computer or stepped out with the ol' iPod, this song had to be played at least once. How often do you hear those vintage carousel-esque pipe organs in a rock song? The lyrics were never particularly meaningful to me, but with that raspy grate in Frank Pedano's vocals, "thought she was right...she was soooooo wrong" does feel like it's digging into you somewhere personal. Or at least it does for me. Then the piano interlude...so damn good.
6. The Everybodyfields - Aeroplane
This was not the song that I originally intended to link by the everybodyfields. I really, reeeeally wanted to post a link to I Can't Sleep but there are only a couple lower quality live versions on YouTube. Not only are the slide guitars in that song the most mournful you've ever heard, the one line in the chorus:
And I can't sleep 'cause I don't dream of you anymore
is one of the most poignant, tear-jerking, on-the-nose lyrics I've ever heard in a heartbreak song. This song, however, is just as excellent if only for the gentle explosiveness of the loose-strung guitar and the fiddle right at the beginning. The words aren't particularly meaningful to me, but i do love the lines in the (I think) third verse:
You do what you want to do
I will be right here waiting
I dunno. I'm just always drawn to the idea of unconditional patience.
7. The Antlers - Kettering
The entire Hospice album is--to borrow a phrase--a staggering work of heartbreaking genius. It's a concept album that tells the story of the relationship and romance of a hospice worker at Sloan-Kettering and a patient who has terminal bone cancer. This song specifically is about his first encounter with her and his realization of how impossible it will be to care for/watch the death of this woman he just fell in love with. Obviously I can't necessarily relate to every aspect of this song, but I've been a part of those ongoing bedside vigils and I've watched grandparents die in their sleep and I've been in love. So some of the pieces do come together. Even if you can't relate, though, the words are just so moving in their agonizing simplicity. I would quote every last one if I could, but to pick my favorites I would have to say:
'Cause you'd been abused by the bone that refused you
because it sums up so many complicated concepts and realities in a beautiful-yet-chilling visual. And if I had to chose just one more it would be:
And I didn't believe them
When they told me that there was no saving you
just because goddamn. And if the context or the lyrics don't do anything for you, this song has stood out for me above thousands of others just for the mournful fragility of Peter Silberman's voice. Over top of the soft, haunting pulsing of the piano? Shivers and shudders.
8. Songs: Ohia - The Black Crow
I added this one simply for
And it's fading
And it's fading
And it's fading
You really don't need more than that.
9. The Acorn - Lullaby (Mountain)
I mean, c'mon. Just listen to the intro. You can almost see a POV shot moving through foliage up the side of a mountain. It sounds like curious animals flitting across a path. The sun peeking around untouched leaves. Green overgrowth and not knowing what's around the next corner. It kind of reminds me of Little Bird by Lisa Hannigan but that's not important. I haven't really paid any attention to the words, but I do know that Casey Mecija's voice (of Ohbijou fame) is like a tickle in your ear. She really does have the perfect lullaby voice.
10. State Radio - Indian Moon
Lastly, Indian Moon is one of those songs that reintroduced me to music. For the year or so before I happened across it, I was mostly listening to various niche genres of metal, completely ignoring anything else that was out there. I can't remember the specific circumstances of how it occurred, but I believe I was trying to find songs that were similar to Joshua Radin's 'The Fear You Won't Fall' for a friend. I came across Camilo by State Radio and really dug their sound (euch) so enthusiastically dove into their discography. They don't have a single song I dislike, but one of the first few that I listened through during that initial discovery period was this one. And oh em gee did it trigger a landslide in me. The delicate, bell-like tintannabulation of the guitar, how the harmonica sounds like it's staring off sadly into the distance, the power of Chad's tenderly abraisive voice, the strum pattern changes with each verse transition,
You're my chorus my refrain
The verse of my first pain
Let the voices come barrelling back
This song inspired me to immerse myself in beautiful music and has continued to for the past four years. So I would actually like to thank this song and its creators. For whatever that's worth.
