Life is quick these days. Music is fired at you in the form of digital singles and unless you want to take a loan out to buy over-priced vinyl, such alacrity will continue. The deadlines imposed by your job have become tighter than your government’s fiscal policy and the smiles and social interaction once afforded by people to people, has now been largely replaced by a click and follow button aknowldegement of existence.
Desktop Alarm Clock is most definitely an antidote to the above. Very essentially it is ‘introspective laconic’ personified and provides us with the perfect opportunity to just step off the world for a while, accompanied by an aesthetic that is perfectly described in this mystery Denver based act’s Spotify bio as:
Introspective bedroom pop for insomniacs – this is music for sitting in your car in the rain, avoiding the world for just a few more minutes.
At it’s truly wonderful best Avalanche, Nothing Ever Happens, Wishing Well and Traditional Structure (Love Song) are early Bright Eyes textures wrapped up in the blanket of the prettier end of the Elliott Smith back catalogue that was made before he was totally consumed by a sense of defeat.
All glorious guitar-pop subtleties, offering tiny vignettes of love in an inimitably unnassuming, almost shy manner, the whole listening experience feels like a gentle hand on the shoulder, guiding you or at least giving you the choice ofm somewhere better.
Occasionally the sound bends towards something more precocious with Writing, Growing Out and Summer Plans adding that sense of unobtrusive indietronica that made the early 2000’s so perfect, with acts like Broadcast, The French and The Postal Service finally getting around to developing the sound that the Young Marble Giants has suggested 20 years previously. Still all perfectly subtle, such tracks are a subsidiary string to a bow already crowded with aural cuddles.
In 20 years time Desktop Alarm Clock are likely to be the subject of the affections of cool 40 somethings who have helped developed his cult status and write wistful messages on devoted Facebook pages, opining why he was not ‘bigger’.
That really would be a shame, not just because this artist deserves more acclaim, but more specifically because the more people who hear this artist, the more likely we are to just calm the f**k down and revel in a sense of ‘human real’ again.
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