Breathers - 1-800-PAIN

Gerard Marcus

I have a friend who’s a bike messenger. One day while slipping through the streets of downtown Brooklyn, she rode into a car door someone opened without looking, flew off her bike, and hit the ground pretty hard. I went to see her after the accident and found her lying in bed unable to move. I told her she had to go to the doctor, just to make sure everything was ok, and she laughed. She didn’t have health insurance, couldn’t afford it, and the last time she was in a bike accident and went to the doctor she got stuck paying off thousands of dollars in medical fees. Unwilling to deal with that again, this time she decided to just stay home and self medicate until she got better. It took about a month. She’s riding her bike again now. 

Breathers is a band from Atlanta, Georgia, whose latest album ‘Designed To Break’ is full of synth pop gems designed to make you both dance and think. The new video for their single “1-800-PAIN” takes us on a surreal journey with protagonist Tommy Pain, a slightly sketchy lawyer who works in injury claims. Pain seems content within a system that takes advantage of peoples’ suffering for financial gain, until one day a minor work accident traps him in that very system. Pain tries everything he can think of to help himself, but the system does nothing but make his pain worse, leading to a moment of agony in which he destroys his own office. He collapses into a chair, sees his own ad on TV, and picks up the phone to call himself for help. It’s a brilliant critique of American healthcare and how it can drive us to forgo professionals and take care of ourselves by ourselves. Not because it’s a good idea or because we want to, but because, at a certain point, what other option do we have?

Breathers’ ‘Designed To Break’ is out now on Irrelevant Music check out and purchase the whole record HERE

TOLEDO - Bath

Jordan Feinstein

“I take a bath and a bottle of addys” TOLDEO sings in their new single, “Bath.” The track is a dream-pop bath and bottle of adderall, suppressing its inner turmoil beneath mellow sounds and major chords, an aural approximation of the pill’s effect. Even though the singer has been medicated since nine years old for anger issues, he still doesn’t “find the peace of mind or the answers.” But he’s certainly figured out at least one way of coping, and like those warm baths, this song’s wash of sound might just be another.

Single from TOLEDO's EP Hotstuff

Reighnbeau - Slight EP

Gerard Marcus

REIGHNBEAU is a New Mexico based musical project headed by artist Bryce Hample. His latest EP ‘Slight’ shifts and morphs like sand in a desert, flowing through dream pop, folk, glitch, and synth soundscapes. Colleen Johnson, Madeline Johnston, and Bryce Hample’s vocals fill six surreal tracks that explore love, loss, and the hypnotic nature of rhythm.

GREAT TIME - Lazy Lilly

Abigail Clyne

Every generation has their own conventions to push past or upend. Anywhere you look today, millennials are blamed for the death of some established norm. Whether it’s cable tv, brick and mortar stores, or the sacred bonds of marriage, it’s all young people’s fault. Great Time’s new video for the song “Lazy Lilly” (the title itself perhaps a tongue in cheek nod to the “lazy millennial,” who knows!) explores how relationships have changed from one generation to the next.

The video follows an older man going about his day in his cozy home somewhere in the Northeastern US. Unlike the singer’s past relationship, “Oh, we fell apart making our hard decisions,” this man is alone because death has separated him and his wife. Having the choice to break up or get divorced is a necessity of modern living, but it can also turn what used to be simple fact, that you stay with who you’re with, an overwhelming chain of what if’s. With the line “Is love ours to fall apart?” the song seems to be asking if all modern relationships are doomed to fail without the societal pressure to make them work. 

The band makes a brief appearance in the video, seated on the windowsills as if they’re a part of the house, and by extension showing how much each generation is shaped by those that come before. The warm and cozy feel captures the comfort one hopes to attain in old age, while simultaneously creating a mood of melancholy and loss. Jill Ryan’s brooding vocals combine beautifully with the sparse yet buoyant instrumentation to create a wistful dreamlike reality. The closing line “Oh, we fall apart, our love won’t make it last...” ends the song on a downer. Maybe us millennials just don’t have what it takes to make our relationships work? Or maybe we’re just still young. 

David Vassalotti - The Light

By Jordan Feinstein

David Vassalotti’s “The Light” is a song about the very specific moment when someone has messed up and is terrified that it will end their relationship. But instead of anger at his partner, David experiences relief that everything is out in the open now, and he can now exist with and see them honestly.

“The Light” is filled with beautiful lyrics and sounds, both taking a quasi-psychedelic approach to its themes. “There’s no beast left to fear behind the door… it’s good to see you here // it’s good to be with you here // why did it take so long to turn a light on?” Describing this unknown as a feared beast behind a door is a beautiful and fantastical metaphor. They entered the room, turned the light on, and instead of a monster, they’ve only found themselves together in a new, well-lit room. This warmth and comfort is paralleled in the aural landscape of the song: a warm bath of guitar, drums, and gentle singing. A repeated “boom” sounds throughout the track, perhaps meant to be the revelation in the relationship. But it’s non-threatening, mixed softly under the calming guitars and drums–an explosion that wasn’t. The song ends with a psychedelic journey of sounds as they “go out the back door,” awash with potential and optimism for what comes next

“The Light” is a beautiful take on a moment that could have been terrifying, but instead turned mesmerizing and exciting. It’s a complex and mature conclusion from a songwriter comfortable exploring themselves honestly, and more than capable of translating it into a gorgeous song. It’s no easy feat, and makes me nothing but excited to hear what David Vassalotti does next.

“The Light” is from David Vassalotti’s new album Guitar Dream out on 1/25/19 and up for pre-order here.