“America is many things to many people”
For music that is self-described as “aimed directly at putting people to sleep,” Trash Lights grabs a thought provoking sound bite to open their track Second Movements. In this incredible time of political uncertainty, there are plenty of examples out there for us. Just turn the television to your local news channel, open your social media apps, call your parents . . . you know you are due for a call. Amidst public (and not so public) opinion I think you will find an over-arching motif of fear. Maybe somewhere deep down in our collective consciousness, even if we personally haven’t been affected yet, we know that we could be watching the death of the American Dream. And because we don’t know what would happen next if that were true, we are afraid.
Second Movements sounds a little bit more hopeful. The opening synth lines weave in and out of phase while swelling and ringing out. It feels like the soundtrack to a sunrise over our Olympic Mountains here in Washington State, or maybe a time lapse of high and low tides in Elliott Bay. Static and overdriven guitar add movement to this song. Trash Lights is more than capable of crafting ambient soundscapes using a variety of instrumentation.
Brendon Helgason and Steve Andrea are no strangers to long composition. In their previous outfit, Lowmen Markos, they helped created intricate instrumental music influenced by a wide variety of rock, jazz, and fusion. Hints of these styles can be found within the textures of sound in Second Movements, creating an ambient noise song with a distinguishable pop sensibility. This song would easily be effective in almost any documentary format and if you don’t smoke too much weed and stay up all night worrying about the future of our nation, it could even help you fall asleep . . .