SWEET LIGHTS - "YOU LET ME DOWN"

"Tyson asked me to review "You Let Me Down" by Sweet Lights and I have to admit it took me a couple weeks to comply. Partly because I'm lazy and partly because the song defies easy description. Plus, it didn't reach me in the way I want songs to reach me. That definitely says more about me as a listener than it does about the song. I'm a sucker for melody and more than a little sense of nostalgia in my music. I tend towards the sappy. Or, I tend towards the dancey. You let me down is neither of those things, though it tempts you that it is. Sections sound like Beck circa Sea Change and sections sound like David Bowie's Space Oddity and sections sound eerily like Bohemian Rhapsody. Yet the song shifts enough in its six minutes that each of those comparisons seems partial. In fact, my desire to bring up comparisons, to have the song achieve a kind of stylistic coherence, says more about me than it does the song. It says a lot about me. Tyson knows me, and in many ways is a music mentor. I have a sneaking suspicion he asked me to review this song as a way of expanding my horizons. Its worked buddy, I am more willing to admire that which does not cohere. Its a ridiculously brave thing artistically to create something that actively pushes against its own continuity. And its clear Sweet Lights is talented enough that they could have homogenized this song down any number of stylistic avenues. But they didn't, and that makes it more interesting as art and as influence. Lesson learned over here. Now, give me back my Beach House." - Aaron

Sweet Lights info: BANDCAMP | TUMBLR