Personalizing political dissent in music isnt easy, especially if the goal is to create an artistic statement that will outlast the politics of the moment. British electronica wizard Matthew Herbert specializes in writing epigrammatic lyrics cloaked in wistful soundscapes, and while his verses often steer away from the details of his dissent, he gets highly specific in his sonic sources for music samples.
Herbert refuses to sample any other persons music, replicate traditional acoustic instruments or use drum machines. Instead, he employs the dripping sounds of petrol pumps to ignite Were in Love, a subversive lament for the end of the oil age. Distinguished by sweeping strings, a gentle piano melody, dreamy horns, and Dani Sicillianos winsome voice, Were in Love initially comes off like an early-70s R&B ballad in the tradition of the Chi-Lites or Friends of Distinction.
But underneath the songs sublime exterior, Herbert details an apocalyptic world of depleting natural resources. Though we cant believe it, we've built a world to breathe it / And when we need to face it, it wont be there, Sicilliano coos, before singing, You know its the best when youve laid it to rest. Once the politics of Were in Love become clear, its sentiments become all the more bittersweet.
Listen to yesterday's 'Song of the Day.'
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