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We need to talk about Lines of Flight.
More accurately, I need to talk about Lines of Flight and you need to listen…if not to me, then to them.
Not everyone who makes music is a musician.
Not everyone who writes lyrics is a lyricist or a poet.
All art is not equal.
I know, it’s subjective.
Except it’s not.
Some things are, objectively, better than other things…says who?
Says me.
There are thrills and spills to be had from (yet another) gang of middle-aged, middle of the road, blokes with an exhaustive, and exhausting, interest in Oasis. I like some of those bands. I like a mundane pseudo-anthem as much as you do. I do. I really do.
I also love the drawings and paintings that my eight year old daughter presents me with. They aren’t any good…but they are made with vigour and vim. There is paint but they are not paintings. There are shapes and colours and lines and characters…but they are not Laura Knight.
Some things are, objectively, better than other things.
The torrent of rawk with precious little roll music that forms the bulk of what is presented as indie music or that is presented as the next big thing is…very often…a bit tiresome and tedious. Maybe even a little boring? Just a little? No? It might just be me.
When something different and, more importantly, better arrives, it is a cause for celebration. Hold on to your party hats and poppers.
I once spent six months of my life lying.
Six full months.
I had a job but I didn’t do any work.
I would leave the house in the morning, suited and booted, climb into my car, wave goodbye to my partner and head for the city where I was meant to be working. Once I arrived I would find a car park, pull in, shut off the engine and then…sit and stare and cry and worry and think and cry. Every day. Every day. Every day the same. Every now and then I would find the energy to do one of the things I was meant to do and that was enough to help me fabricate a believable days work for my superiors. Sometimes as well as the sitting and the staring and the crying and the worrying and the thinking…there would be cutting. Them was rotten days.
There was no one there to see those tears.
I had to cry alone.
Nobody knew the pain inside.
I was in very real danger of disappearing.
I could say more but I think you get the general idea.
“Disappearance” is the sixth song released by Lines of Flight and it is a glimpse inside the mind of…me. And maybe you. It is a song for the grotesquely lonely, for the hurt and the broken, for the bruised and the battered. It is also, for exactly the same reasons, a song of hope and healing, of comfort and support. A song for the haunted.
A giddy blend of “Disintegration” era The Cure…brooding, dark and slow moving…it is also a swooping and soaring, free bird of a song. Hope and despair. Most importantly it confirms, as if confirmation were needed, that we are dealing with a band who are worthy of the sort of hype that people bestow on the cagoule clad bloke rockers. I blame “bangers”…as soon as people who claim to love indie music started bleating on about “bangers” and “tunes” we started to witness the disappearance of what indie was. Thankfully Lines of Flight are truly independent…creating and crafting synthpop, dream pop, indie pop, hymns for the faithful.
It’s time to start listening.
LINES OF FLIGHT ARE ON TWITTER HERE
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