This is a quiet, gorgeous little gem: An ode to the twilight moment when you don’t know whether to keep fighting for something or just give up. It’s been done a thousand times before, certainly when it begins with a lilting acoustic guitar and voice being sung quietly as if through a crack in a door you think you know how the next 4 minutes are going to play out.
However Musee Mechanique have managed to incorporate the chaotic instrumentation of their live shows (tack pianos, saws, hand operated ice cream makers) into something very considered and subtle. Exactly like the moment you feel you’ve reached your conclusions regarding a break up but then find a new thought running through your subconscious, Fits and Starts is bursting with beautiful yet haunting textures that fade in and out from view.
After the seemingly conclusive line “I might just get up”, we get the entrance of a comforting bass and organ that immediately expand the scope of the song. When the pedal steel cascades into the chorus to punctuate the line “It’s what I hear when I’m lost and alone in the dark” the song has become much more than an exercise in the ‘look how sensitive I am’ exhibitionism, its painting with sound with the same school of thought as Debussy.
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There are so many moments of a joy within this. My personal favourite is the hypnotically simple glockenspiel pattern in the second verse, like the thought of a smile you can’t shift out of your brain. Yes, there are countless examples of this kind of song floating around at the moment but this slightly altered approach cuts deeper than most.
Musee Mecanique on Myspace
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