Coupled with intense rhythmic hooks and jaunty infectious melancholy lyrics, these short sweet pieces make me feel joyful and full of hope, even as the lyrics are moody and depressing.
A necessary defragmentation for the mental-emotional hard drive
We all have our comfort music, and I found some great new comfort music when idialedyournumber put out their short album Mourning Glow this past March. I’ve been listening to it quite often since then. It helps me power through those boring moments when I am at work, and I find the songs replaying in my head over and over again when I am driving around the city on this errand or that errand.
Comfort music for me often fits into some predictable categories. One category features dreamy female vocals. Another category features angry female vocals. Both are present on this album. Yet another comfort music features addictive guitar based pop hooks and harmony, as transposed through the plethora of punk, indie and alternative varieties. Those solid pop hooks and harmonies are on this little album too, but in the style of Emo, and it is what make these earworms so addictive to my digitally addled brain. Yes, there is something digital about this music too.
Sometimes you just need a little Midwest Emo in your musical diet. The Midwest Emo genre comes from all those Midwest bands that pioneered the style in the 90s and oughts, perhaps best personified by the Illinois group American Football. idialedyournumber however is Pier Emo. I wasn’t exactly sure what that was, but seems to be a tongue-in-cheek reference to being from Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Kind of like roughage ::
I never listened to a ton of Emo, but sometimes you need to. It’s kind of like roughage. It cleanses the system. Or at least it cleanses my system. What it does to your system, I can’t be sure. Maybe listening to Emo is like giving yourself a system update. A necessary defragmentation for the mental-emotional hard drive.
idialedyournumber isn’t just Midwest Emo and Pier Emo though, but also Chiptune Emo. The synthesizers are as prominent as the guitars. Glitches abound on this release and the repetitive synth heavy leads combine with the jangly guitar in such a perfect way as to send me along in a mode of overloaded agro bliss.
Did I mention the songwriting? The thing about Emo is its pure emotion. And the songwriting here is pure emotion. Coupled with intense rhythmic hooks and jaunty infectious melancholy lyrics, these short sweet pieces make me feel joyful and full of hope, even as the lyrics are moody and depressing.
What a roller coaster ::
idialedyournumber is the solo project of Jessie Everill. She’s got some real talent, and is one to watch, so this will be a Bandcamp site I continue to keep my ears open for. I first discovered her work via the magic of the YouTube algorithm. Sometimes Big Brother can be nice and throw you a bone, even every click is tracked and your listening profile modeled. Whatever the case may be I was delighted to discover the song “Bunny Goes 2 Business School,” from the album Hourglass.
After first listen of that song, I probably listened to it three times in a row right then. No, probably six. I’ll be honest. So, yeah, I picked up the album Hourglass for my Bandcamp collection. It was pure heaven. The way Everill uses staccato static poundings here and there on the songs, the combination of slightly detuned guitar but perfectly executed strumming, layered with alternating aggressive guttural barking and sweet singing, mixed with melodious electronic shimmers and furious drum pounding, really got beat into my brain.
So when the new album Mourning Glow was announced, I got it right away, asap. It begins with an explosion of force over the songs, “I Found a Pulse,” “6:00 AM” and “Spilling to Colby.”
After those songs it continues to hold its own until the fervent blast of energy plateaus on the song “Linen Shroud” which features Hey Lily. The plateau is understandable because it is difficult to keep up that kind of energy. Like the best punk music, and differing from some of the Math Rock influence on Midwest Emo, these songs are short and sweet. Like eating a bag of skittles and washing it down with a can of soda, the energy peaks fast, and then there is a crash. But after the crash I want to listen to it again. What a roller coaster.
Mourning Glow is available on Bandcamp.
