Introducing: Former Selves
04 Aug 2010 — Henning Lahmann
Sure, I do know what you wanna say now. You see the picture above. The video still below. And then you see the the songs' titles. And yes, you're so right, we are dealing with another lo-fi beach/surf pop artist here. So is there any need for posting this?
Well, let me put it this way: It's still summer (apologies to you people from the Southern Hemisphere, I am aware of you), and good music does not get worse just because we've had artists of the same strand before. Admittedly, the three tunes below do remind us of some stuff we've heard this year (the beginning of Endless Bummer in particular is heavily reminiscent of the Beach Fossils for instance), but somehow Berkeley's Paul Skomsvold aka Former Selves achieves to create something unique nonetheless. Where his more famous contemporaries simply celebrate the joys of life or at least show sincere longing for the easy days of childhood summers, there's something subtly dark and twisty about Skomsvold's output that won't easily fit into that common scheme (the artist himself refers to his music as "ghost-fi"), as if he knew that even lush beach parties know that certain guy who will just be ignored by the cool bunch. This considered, Why Not Chill Out? could actually be more than a mere rhetorical question. We won't, cause there's more to life, even in the summertime.
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=13637690&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=ff9933&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0
Former Selves - Why Not Chill Out?
Former Selves - Life'z a Beach
Former Selves - Endlezz Bummer
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Sure, I do know what you wanna say now. You see the picture above. The video still below. And then you see the the songs' titles. And yes, you're so right, we are dealing with another lo-fi beach/surf pop artist here. So is there any need for posting this?
Well, let me put it this way: It's still summer (apologies to you people from the Southern Hemisphere, I am aware of you), and good music does not get worse just because we've had artists of the same strand before. Admittedly, the three tunes below do remind us of some stuff we've heard this year (the beginning of Endless Bummer in particular is heavily reminiscent of the Beach Fossils for instance), but somehow Berkeley's Paul Skomsvold aka Former Selves achieves to create something unique nonetheless. Where his more famous contemporaries simply celebrate the joys of life or at least show sincere longing for the easy days of childhood summers, there's something subtly dark and twisty about Skomsvold's output that won't easily fit into that common scheme (the artist himself refers to his music as "ghost-fi"), as if he knew that even lush beach parties know that certain guy who will just be ignored by the cool bunch. This considered, Why Not Chill Out? could actually be more than a mere rhetorical question. We won't, cause there's more to life, even in the summertime.
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=13637690&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=ff9933&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0
Former Selves - Why Not Chill Out?
Former Selves - Life'z a Beach
Former Selves - Endlezz Bummer
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