Too Late for the Rickshaws by Late Night Pharmacy is the kind of o.g. indie rock music that I’ve been missing. Somewhere between the likes of The Airborne Toxic Event, The Temper Trap, and Two Door Cinema Club lives this Dublin-based four-piece. The song is about the quotidian lives of two men in their forties the guitarist happened to strike up a conversation with on a tram. Touching on notes of drug abuse, the song gets it’s title from the phenomenon of rickshaws in Dublin being used as a front to sell cocaine and ecstasy. The melody of the chorus is especially great, embellished with clean melodic guitars, and the singer’s tendency to add sporadic runs to the end of a phrase not unlike the style of Autoheart. Check the song out on our Indie Rock and Pop 2021 playlist below.
Pretty Purple by Flotter Otter is a synthy-beat based song that is light and airy. The layering of bass and lead synths is effective, and the song builds well into the chorus. The surprise piano ending is a welcome surprise. I’d only wish for a bit more variety and sound design in such a synth and beat-centric song, possibly with some automated effecting using envelopes and filters.
“is it 2 much” by es.cher is a lo-fi sampl-y, and glitched out track. It evokes hazy memories of a family vacation caught on film, worn down over years of replaying, or maybe that’s just all the warping glitch effects on the track. Regardless, it’s an interesting collage of sonic environments that creates an ambient and evocative soundscape.
Runaway by Krosst Out is a tour-de-force of genres. Combining elements of electro, pop R&B, rap, and pop-punk in a highly disorienting yet cathartic way; every time I think we’ve landed somewhere, we most definitely have not, and yet thats the best part.
Paranoia by Blayze DeVille of Rustenberg, South Africa, is about the disillusionment resulting from the confrontation with limited prospects and glass ceilings that comes with coming of age, and yet pushing forward anyhow.
“Hand me all I’m asking for, the cash, the ass, the mask, the Porsche.”
Blayze DeVille
This sisyphean tale is based on a reggae infused bass-line, a drum beat inspired by The Police’s Roxanne and utilize sparse instrumentation to emphasize the vocal line. In a bizarre twist of expectations, the artist confesses that they actually intentionally add cursing retroactively to their songs in order to use the “parental advisory” sticker on their album cover–an aesthetic choice with musical consequences that I whole-heartedly appreciate.