Happy New Year to you! Kicking this new year off, I picked a song that I feel is very spiritual and speaks of new beginnings, while being haunted by past mistakes.
This is one of the few times where I'll talk about the video as well as the song because I absolutely love the director's concept piece. The idea is that the boy (Kumari as he is named by the Director) is a prophesied God. He plays with the lights in the beginning like how God created light in the beginning. He is guarded by amazonian women who try to teach and guide him. Kumari is then notified by a government official who pleads with him to see a miracle on the beach. On the way, you notice that Kumari is nervous and you can see the tension in that he may believe that he isn't what he seems to be. He longs to play with the other kids and have a normal life. When they get there however, Kumari is so stricken by the vision that his power manifests and he is finally brought to a higher level where he then goes out into the world.
I'm a bit of a sucker for pseudo origin stories of a teenage jesus-like being. The longing to be one with another group when you are destined to be something more. The opposite of a Luke Skywalker.
The song on the other hand, taken without the visuals and the metaphors of the video, has this other feeling. This want to move on, though other things keep dragging you down. Indecision and fears of making the wrong decision are themes that are wrought within this song. Musically, it's layered with various drum beats synth noises. Between the chorus, the verses, and the bridge, there almost seems to be a different arrangement of instruments. The drums kind of change up between an actual drum set, to synth drums, and an odd place here and there where the two converge. The singing changes its effects, going from a moaning echo, to a digitized auto tune mode. The melody of the song, done with piano, haunts the song, seemingly always present. The heavily digitized bass synth provides a hefty gravity to the song to accompany the singer's more airy, higher pitch singing.
The overall musical theme remains the same and Miike Snow isn't afraid to experiment with the few notes it allotted itself with. You can hear the intricacies of their work and find something new each time you play through the song. There is a very primal, almost tribalistic, core to their sound that is filtered with today's electronics to make it sound more modern. The band members of Miike Snow are all accomplished musicians that you've heard before, but never knew you heard. They've helped create a lot of pop songs in the recent years and they've finally broke out on their own to create their own stuff; I highly suggest you check it out and get the deluxe version that comes with the extra songs and remixes.
Notable Lyrics (Note, no one has the real lyrics to this song and at times it's hard to discern what he's saying):
I tried to beat the devil too many times
I'm in love and she is tragic Magic
I wanna listen to my evil eye
and I put her down but she won't have it
I wanna know I wanna know
I wanna know which way to go
before it tramples on me
but the rabbit jumps
back in his hole
and I forget that I am just like
everybody else
everybody else
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