*Note: This is the rare two-part song review/commentary. It will be worth a lot someday.
I am what’s known as a looper on this music-sharing site I’ve belonged to for some time called letsloop.
I go long periods without visiting the site, but when I snoop around–especially on the new releases page–I aways find at least one song that is good.
I often find a song that’s dope, as in the case of this moody masterpiece of a joint called “Pressure,” performed by My Brightest Diamond. Here’s what I wrote in my review on LetsLoop. It might be a bit hyperbolic, but what could I do but fawn over a song with these dynamics?
PRESSURE BY MY BRIGHTEST DIAMOND
Powerful and sexy. I didn’t expect the energy to be turned up so high. And now there’s the most feral breakdown in the middle. This might be a new genre. I feel the urge to acknowledge Billie Holiday who haunts lead singer this fierce and frantic. As for production, no bells and whistles go unused, no stone unturned, no instrument untuned.
Marching band drums, trombone slides slinking around the corners. Soft xylophone sighs. And there’s a buzzing, mechanical riff, if you can call it a riff. It’s more like a cicada in your ears.
The most irresistible part of the song is when lead singer Shara Nova channels Lady Day. She goes full, sweet tea, haunted plantation, whiskey-dulled blues, when she intones the refrain: “I went down, down, down.” This is Goth music.
This is shadow work. It may even be voodoo. This is a return to the honeysuckle intimacy of real blues singers. And then the way the beat drops. What is that feral interlude? Is it dub? Drum and bass? I’m asking for a friend who tries to keep up but was born way back in the ’70s. That friend is me.
However you qualify the song, it’s tinged as dark as a pedestrian hurrying through a bad neighborhood short on streetlights. I’m fascinated. You will hear from me again in a hundred years when I have digested “Pressure” by My Brightest Diamond. Also, it’s my car new karaoke go-to.
–Sarah Torribio
Listen to more Songs of the Day HERE
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