Burst Apart

Last week, I blogged about Mutual Benefit's Skip a Sinking Stone, an album that's all about getting over past breakups and learning to believe in love once more.

Today, I'd like to talk about an album that's similar in theme but far more visceral and desperate in its delivery: Burst Apart by The Antlers.

Released in May 2011, Burst Apart is the sequel to Hospice, also known as The Most Depressing Album of All Time™. Hospice was a concept album about an abusive relationship with someone who has terminal cancer, although it's possible that the terminal cancer was just a metaphor for the gradual deterioration of the relationship itself; either way, it made for very miserable listening.

September Playlist: Gonna Be Young Again

September is a weird, transitional month that's half summer, half autumn, and doesn't really feel properly like either. That's also true of this month's playlist, which mingles the last faded rays of summer sunshine with the first crackles of autumn.

Or it's just 10 songs I listened to lots last month. You decide.

1. Paint with the Sun by Arc Iris

(from Moon Saloon)

The piano-led new single from Arc Iris is a truly majestic thing that's just the right side of psychedelic. Read my review of Moon Saloon here.

2. Please Don't Kill Me by Reptar

(from Body Faucet)

I got this album ages ago - Please Don't Kill Me itself was a staple of my summer 2013 playlist - but I revisited it last month for the first time in a while and was pleased to find it even more packed with sweet riffs and surprises than I remembered.

Skip a Stone, Let it Sink

It's a sad truth that the vast majority of romantic relationships eventually fail. The oft-quoted statistic is that 50% of marriages end in divorce, but how many more millions of couples split before they even get as far as the wedding? What are the true chances that any given relationship will last until one person dies?

At the beginning of Mutual Benefit's new album Skip a Sinking Stone, we find Jordan Lee (the man at the centre of this ever-shapeshifting musical project) reeling from a relationship that unfortunately didn't work out. As he tosses pebbles into a vast lake, he wonders if he'll ever be able to fall in love again, and he observes that making a relationship stick is like trying to skim a stone: some of them sink straight away, while some hop along briskly for a little while before running out of steam and disappearing into the water after all.

When you embark upon a new relationship, you're hoping against hope that, this time, the pebble will bounce away over the horizon and somehow keep going forever - unlike all the failed skimming stones cluttering up the foreground of the CD cover.