Lapsley Painter is a master of the little, the pure essence of beauty in little over 3 minutes. This is as close you will get to pop perfection.
Nowadays musicians sit in their bedrooms adding tracks and tracks, layer after layer to their sounds. Always looking to make a song sounding as big as you can get. Squeezing endless effects, virtual instruments and synthesizers over another, forgetting the song in the process. Overwhelmed with choice and possibilities (remember, the Beatles recorded their albums with only four tracks, then eight and by the end just 16!).
Then there’s the volume levels. They are all pumped to the maximum. Even the parts that are supposed to sound quiet are ’normalized‘. There’s the ‚loudness war‚, the crappy small laptop speakers and cheap headphones most people will listen to their music with, there are the big hymns we need to feel something. The drugs we take to escape and to feel. There are the sleepless nights we spent in clubs chasing after a quick fuck. Chasing someone to make us feel less lonely. Someone to boost our self esteem. The excess, the sunrise, the smoke, the alcohol, the noise, the bass. The sunday mornings that are terrible to bear. The cheap takeaway meals. The aspirin. And the loneliness when we realize how stupid this all is.
Music is the soundtrack to our own self-destruction. We use it to spur us on. We use it to feel better, but mostly to pretend everything is ok. 5 Lines. That’s sometimes all it takes. Lapsley takes my breath away. ‚Painter‘ is just a b-side. But it breaks my heart. Remember the lump in your throat, the cracks in your voice when you told your crush you love her for the first time? It’s just four letters, there are just three simple words to say, but the seconds before you spill them and the seconds after that can be the most heartbreaking moments in your life. With all the noise and all the distractions in our life it’s hard to focus. It’s hard to find peace. And it’s hard to love.
Lapsley’s Painter could be the soundtrack to every tear you shed. The soundtrack to every moment of joy. For the drunk walk home. For the sunrise in the city. For the sunset at the sea. The rainy evening at home. It’s so intimate. And it breathes. It crackles. It’s vulnerable. It’s everything I’m searching for in music. I’m drained, but I’ll keep this on repeat.
