TUNES // Runnner – Frame

Post by Misha

This song hits a particularly tender nerve.

“I stay up late for nothing good.
I kick myself for never sleeping,
weighted down by all I should.”

I’m listening to the lyrics a little after midnight and thinking about what a universal experience this is. I wonder how much collective time is spent just keeping crushing guilt at bay for having watched another episode of television instead of doing the dishes or finishing a poem or whatever – like if you tallied it all up, all the hours spent by all the sad and anxious late night people all across the world? Which is funny because the universality of it should make it feel less lonely, right? But instead it feels more alone, more disorienting. Because if everyone feels this way then shouldn’t no one feel this way?

So in some ways this song feels a drop in a leaky bucket, a shout into an old void. But it’s so lush and generous that it makes even the void feel warm and familiar. It’s jangly in all the right places. Soft and open and full of forgiving air. Like when you open the window and it’s so early in the morning that the street outside is quiet for once except for birds. It smells like cut grass and wet asphalt.

I think that as the anxiety generation comes of age so does our music. It feels like we are pulling out of a frenetic, panic-driven noise dive into something steady and low. Seems like I hear less songs trying to replicate the sound of a panic attack and more dedicated to soothing a worried coexistence. Forehead creases and herbal tea. I’m not sure if that is good or bad as a barometer for mental health, but it does make for a very pretty song.

Runnner is an LA based band who make “Bandcamp music for Soundcloud kids” (a bio I connect with very strongly.) Look for a new EP from them, Fan On, out June 7th. The release show will be at The Bootleg on June 11th – get tickets here!