POST NUMBER TWO — REAL ESTATE
I’ve listened to ‘Darling’ maybe 20 times in the few weeks it has been on Spotify, but in a different way to how I listen to most new music.
Usually I voraciously add new tracks to my ‘studio playlist’, used for meditative background noise at work. It’s a good playlist, filled with Bonobo… Tame Impala… Maribou State… this playlist ticks along nicely as I work.
But I didn’t add ‘Darling’ to this playlist, and I found myself actively avoiding it while working.
There’s too much going on for it to be grouped in with inane background noise; too many subtleties that would get lost amongst chatter and work thoughts.
Instead, I line it up for the walk out of work, and I put it on with the kettle on Saturday morning. And with this arrested approach, I get a huge payoff every time.
‘Darling’ is a luscious, layered track that crystalises everything I love about Real Estate. Which i’ll try to explain…
The cover of the band’s 2011 album ‘Days’ has an Ed Ruscha feel to it, matter-of-factly overlaying words on images in an intentionally obtuse way.
Just as Ed Rusha’s work makes you question what familiar words actually mean to you, I’ve found myself staring at Real Estate’s artwork in the same way.
What is ‘real estate’ and what does it mean in a musical context?
Real estate is a dense, dispassionate label… cold hard words that relate to a behemoth of a business sector.
But also, your house is real estate. Where your parents live and where your best friend grew up… that’s real estate.
That’s how I view this band.
Buried beneath their sleek, minimalist exterior is the meaning in their songs, and it packs a punch. If some artists wear their hearts on their sleeves, Real Estate keep their hearts under several layers of neat, Scandinavian turtlenecks.
After i’ve been lulled in with a head-nodding melody (built up with layer upon layer of synth and bass but held together with drumming as tight as a particularly mechanical clock)… that’s when singer Martin Courtney murmurs a line that will catch me off guard and floor me.
The song ‘Talking Backwards’ from from the 2014 album ‘Atlas’ typifies juxtaposition. The tropical, bright guitar welcomes you to a track that feels right for a pool party, but the track is actually about feeling deepy frustrated by being caught in an argument.
“And I might as well be talking backwards
Am I making any sense to you
And the only thing that really matters
Is the one thing I can’t seem to do”
This familiar trope is definitely present in upbeat new track ‘Darling’. The wandering introduction lasts a minute and 24 seconds, laying the foundations for their most accomplished, well-rounded song to date.
Beneath the familiar, mechanical melodies, the track’s subject matter is longing. We’re told of finches waiting for warm sun; of a cold night that needs a sunrise to resolve it… these aren’t trivial needs, Courtney is telling a story of perpetual cycles.
You can feel the ups and downs that Courtney describes represented playfully by the intertwining melodies, while the super-tight drums hold the song together with a feeling of permanence and (ironically) timelessness.
To me, ‘Darling’ is about how although longing may be a permanent emotion, anguish needn’t be. Throughout the track — throughout the longing — Courtney’s just kinda nodding his head and carrying on.
It’s a song about how we’re always going to chase something that’s just outside of our grasp. And that once you understand that, it becomes a lot easier to live with that chase; to live in that chase.
In time, i’m sure i’ll add choice tracks from ‘In Mind’ to my work playlist. But for now, i’ll look forward to the first Saturday morning after the album comes out, when i’ll have ten other tracks to avoid while i’m at work.
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Real Estate’s new album ‘In Mind’ is out on March 17th, and I will be buying it from The LP Cafe, which is an excellent independent record store in Watford.
