TUNES // Loz KeyStone – Beirut

Post by Misha

Something that most people who have never lived in a really cold place don’t know is that there are different kinds of snow. There’s the kind of snow that is as fluffy and as impossible to pack down as powdered sugar, and the kind that is cold and sticky; that sticks together well for snowballs and squeaks when you walk on it. There’s the kind that a hard, bitter crust forms over, that is sharp and painful when your foot goes through it. And then there’s the snow that falls fast and in big fat flakes and when it lands on your face it feels like tears.

‘Beirut’ is this last type of snow. It has a cold brittleness to it that thaws over the course of the song. It is the sound of warmth and detachment colliding. Its sounds get softer, mushier, muddier, the way the ground prepares to give life as winter becomes spring. The lyrics are packed full of gut punches delivered in a gray monotone; icy shocks to the system against a desolate landscape.

The beat is quiet but persistent beast; a cigarette lighter flicked over and over late at night in a dark room; the blinking cursor on a blank page; fingers tapping the table while waiting for an absentee date.

But the guitar melody is laid in with such care, such soft and simple generosity, that everything feels connected, and then maybe even hopeful, even when it certainly is not – at least from a narrative perspective. The song’s refrain, “I’m always going to think of you,” is somehow transformed from bitter reproach to loving memory, and even as it all comes to a close and a chill returns to the air when the melody falls away and the refrain is completed – “I’m always going to think of you (and what you put me through)” – you’re left with a certain belief in gentleness and new beginnings.

I first became enchanted with Loz KeyStone a couple of years ago when he sent through his first album, To Feel Love, a collection of exquisitely devastating songs about loss, grief, and coping. Beirut is his first single since that album, and he will be releasing an EP in 2020. You can find his music on Soundcloud, as well as links to all the places you can keep up with Loz and his latest releases.