ALBUMS // Illuminati Hotties – Free IH
Post by Misha
I’m very bad at running a music blog. I think about this all the time. For one thing, I don’t have a particularly nuanced understanding of songwriting, production, or musicianship generally. (The other day, I asked my partner, a proper guitar player, what the difference between a lick and a riff is.) I really only know what I like, what sticks to me.
That might all be redeemable if at least I was good at keeping up with new music and writing about it at a timely clip. But alas, I am not good at that either. I listen at the whim of my moods, of which there are many. Then I write at the mercy of my creative blocks which, again, are numerous.
All of this to say, I have been meaning to listen to – and write about – this Illuminati Hotties album for quite some time, but I knew that listening to it would make me happy and unfortunately I just wasn’t in the mood to be cheered up.
There’s something to be said for waiting for music to find you, though. This morning we woke up to a small reprieve from the New York August heat. The clouds are out but the air isn’t a choking hazard like it was yesterday. I put this album on and decided to ride my bike across the bridge to Central Park.
The reason I didn’t want to be cheered up, of course, is that it feels too much like normal. The finding of small ways to be fine if not ok feels an unearned luxury. It seems that to be alive today is to be constantly figuring out where to stand in relation to the fire, balancing the need to remember the danger that we are in with the need to not actually, you know, catch on fire.
As it turns out, Free IH is a good balm for this dilemma. It’s sunny music with a dystopian twist. Sugary escape with the barbs of cortisone still attached. Its darker trills will stay with you, swirling ominously at the edges, even as its choruses wink of breezy California weather and smiling days.
The album is a thrilling, gritty ride, full of bold surprises and a furious sense of abandon. But one of my favorite moments is perhaps its tenderest, hewing close to vintage Illuminati Hotties. ‘reasons 2 live’, an ode to friends, made me miss my friends, a lot. It made me think about the little things I love about them. It had me closing my eyes in Central Park, conjuring the way they laugh and dance and making a mental list of all their favorite words.
It is a lonely, relentless time. Go to the park when you can. Listen to something you know will cheer you up.
Buy Illuminati Hotties’ Free IH here.