Imagine staring for too long into a salted rock pool through bleary, overwrought tears.
That’s what this song is like.
Cold, aloof, bleached-out.
Located in half a dream. The sounds — and the visual images too — are neither completely nor incompletely divorced from truth. In other words, her world is totally surreal.
Musically, she brings Nina Simone and Billie Holiday into the glare of our modern setting.
But these shaky apparitions cannot last long in our aether. It’s as if the vintage sounds that she creates will easily wither and die if exposed to sunlight so pure.
Now she has delivered “High by the Beach” from her upcoming fourth studio album, Honeymoon.
We had a listen:
All she wants to do is to“Get high by the beach, get high by the beach, get high...”
This is an oozily soporific wander. But that’s only half the truth behind this the quasi-perceptual imagining.
This song is also a lament as well as a protest against unwanted intrusion.
And what might Lana be protecting? Well, it’s her autonomy, her freedom and (above all else)… Her indolence.
So she swats down the cause of her annoyance, like a bored teenager might whack a pesky fly…
And you might notice that she uses a super-gun… And you might think you would find such a thing in a computer-game. (Notice that she finds it, like a hidden easter-egg, under the rocks.) And so, that’s an allusion too. Concentrate on her face after the act. There is no pleasure in it. It’s a look of hidden shame.
Here’s a song about idle escape, solitary pleasure and feeling guilty about losing time through indulgent sleepiness.
It’s magnificent and moody. And sensational to behold.
High By The Beach is out now.
Words: @neilmach 2015 ©
Link: https://www.facebook.com/lanadelrey
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