Laura Misch – Light Years

Similar artists: Bonobo, Björk

Genre: Indietronica, Indie Pop

What’s the first thing that springs to mind when someone mentions sentimental music? Instinctively, you may well drift to a time when you heard blue-hearted singers perform sentimental ballads over a piano backing. But people rejoice and, especially, mourn in different ways. Laura Misch’s “Light Years” is a modern, minimalist, forward-thinking emotional ballad. 

Of course, a lot of what defines modern music are the elements that it chooses to ignore and that its classical predecessor loaded up on. Most sentimental pop of the 1970s, for example, is built around expansive orchestrations, choirs, and lush production. More is more is one approach that has been done more than necessary. 

There’s a great sadness in Laura Misch’s “Light Years,” but it is not expressed in the typical way that a heartwrenching ballad usually does. Instead, the artist chooses to paint over the musical elements that would otherwise have been too typical. There is great hurt, but it is captured in between swirling synth runs, electro percussion, and Misch’s distant but tortured singing. 

Floyd Thursby – Teenage Ladybug (feat. Mademoiselle)

Similar artists: Flight of the Conchords

Genre: Indie Rock

Everbody knows that early rock n’ roll music is primitive and absolutely undeniable. It also happens to be humorous, catchy and musicians can’t help but quote it from time to time. Whether you think Little Richard and Chuck Berry stumbled onto works of genius, or masterfully thieved their way to fame and fortune, it’s unimportant. 

What is important is that we’ll never get rid of rock n’ roll, nor should we want to. Whether musicians are looking to goof around, or dead set on being taken seriously, they arrive back to these sounds like a traveller circling a mountain and getting right back to the place where they once started. 

Floyd Thursby’s “Teenage Ladybug” is a gloriously funny joke of a rock n’ roll song that feels like it was torn out of a 1960s cartoon. There’s something strangely psychedelic emanating from the lyrics about the ladybug and from the simple, seemingly recorded-on-the-spot “Be-Bob-A-Lula” backing. A joke isn’t really funny unless there are enough people who get the punchline, and with retro rock, everyone’s in on the story. 

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