oOoOO - “Hearts”
People don’t always realize that context is a choice, especially when it comes to digital music that you get from the internet. The particular clutch of bands with similar aesthetics as oOoOO—‘witch-house’ or whatever name you want to give it—were mired in context in 2010. What people said about music like this (and, heck, how these bands decorated their myspace pages) often seemed more important than whatever music it was all attached to. And yeah, in some cases that was true, but I also wonder if some of the musical ideas didn’t get a fair shake.
“Hearts” is pale and somewhat gothic, but it’s not crowded by blown-out, sludgy, contourless sounds. The bass rattles like cheap speakers in the back of a car, but it fits comfortably in the middle of the mix. The guitar licks sit like smoky echoes of Fleetwood Mac and the odd synth squiggles provide a wonderfully spacey foil for them. Whoever this singer (‘Miss Lisa’) is, she sounds wounded and distant without the explicitly druggy moans or—heaven forbid—faked rapping. It’s primarily headphone music, but sample the track, speed it up a few clicks, and yeah, I think you could even play this in the club. I guess my point with all of this is: don’t judge a band by its buzz. You might miss out on one of the year’s best songs.
