Et Musique Pour Tous

You stare at her, but she won’t look at you.  She knows all too well that if she does, she will give in, again, like all the other times.  You beg and plead but she continues to stand firm.  You ask her to please look at you, but she won’t; she is done.  As you try to understand this ending that your stomach can’t fathom, you see a single tear building up in her eye.  Hoping that it comes down because it will give you some leverage, you watch and continue your pleas, and the tear never comes down.  Instead, it dries out and she gets up and walks away.

No more fighting! you think to yourself, as he heads out the door yet again.  Your heart breaks every time he does this, but you stay because your heart also loves him so much.  But for as much as you love him, the fights just keep getting worse and you don’t know why.  You have tried to talk about it, and wouldn’t even dare suggest therapy.  ”We are way too young to be going through this”, you think, and then finally you decide that it is time to leave.

Perfect Blue by Brooklyn based band, Lemonade, is a simple tune about a breakup.  It’s a chilly tone with warm sounds, tempo, and a groove.  It is somewhat of a sonic contradiction that makes us love it that much more because so.  The lyrics are painful in a way, if you have ever found yourself in this same situation, or even one completely similar, yet, the sounds feel summery and the harmonies so warm.  For as mellow and care free as the vocals carry on throughout the track, the electronic synths and R&B percussion give it a heartbeat that’s just trying to escape.

Close to the horizon now
It doesn’t look the same to you
and you just need to get away.”

Lemonade — Perfect Blue

They say that illusions and delusions are not real, yet our minds conjure both of these “unreal” things up.  They say that things imagined only exist in our minds, yet, the mind is the only “real” thing we have.  Do you understand this Neo?

We are weird if we don’t do what everyone else is doing, at least that’s how our cultures make us think and feel at times.  We are rebels if we question the rules and limitations of the systems we are inserted into, yet the powers that be can constantly change these rules and limitations at will.

Alive, the newest creation from our friends Empire of the Sun comes at a time where the rebels are gearing up for battle, the powers that be are blatantly stealing every inch of the modern world in front of the faces of society, and the rest of the sheep have no real inkling of what’s happening, and even about to happen to the world as they know it.

Alive is the simple breath of fresh air that we normally take for granted as we get so involved with our own personal missions and within our very own personal agendas.  It is simply a dance tune to make us feel Alive, and to remind us that in between all of the hard work and studying we need to do, we also need to live and appreciate the very freedoms we are so desperately fighting for.

The song boasts huge synths splashed all over it that rock hard with the overpowering, and still welcoming falsettos in the upper regions.  They add more magic to the transient sounds that our bodies naturally respond to and which all too much get lost in the midst of modern day compression within mixes.  The beats on this Empire of the Sun track are as big as the vocals and as familiar as the sound in their debut album.

With a consistent level of quirky creativity and equally quirky sound, it’s hard not to continue the party which was paused at the end of their debut album, with Alive.

Hello to our ṗeople
Say hello to the future.”

Empire Of The Sun — Alive

Music has the ability to takes us places.  It has the power to transport us to dreamscapes and imaginary worlds that we could only imagine.  In that same manner, a dance can do the same, just with a lot more intensity.  Of course to dance, we must have music most of the time, but sometimes the dance has very little to do with music, and everything to do with those places in your mind, and heart, that you want to escape to.

Rebecca & Fiona do an incredible job on their single Dance.  They capture us with a slow and sultry production that features beautiful chords, a steady and hard thumping bassline that provides the intensity of an exaggerated heartbeat supplemented so erotically with the kind of vocals anyone would love.  They have somehow figured out how to make us reflect upon the powers of Dance while simply making sweet love to our ears as we listen closely, and as “dancing”, could be the farthest thing from our minds.

Fearless we can talk 
Hopeless girl still walk.”

In the days to come, many of us will become more and more fearless.  We will turn our hopelessnesses into actions that will see them become realities.  We will turn our most beautiful fantasies and dreams into the everyday worlds we decide to live in.  And, we will learn to do these things through the most traditional forms of getting messages across in societies that surpress independent thoughts and ideas—through music, and, through Dance.

Get your feet back on the ground 
We can leave it all behind 
This dance will keep us cold 
This dance will let you know 

It’s all in your mind 
Take your chance and turn around.”

Dancing and music will become some of the only forms of communication for the intellectually elite.  They will show us the possibilities of escaping from the worlds we know today, in which nothing is what it seems, and, in which things are never really any good.  How else will we be able to spread ideas and messages in a world where our own thoughts are already barely private?

It’s all in your mind 
Take your chances 
Turn around.”

Rebecca & Fiona — Dance