Artist Village: Radio Dept.

(Artist Village is the first installment to Heaven's On Fire, a piece I like to write about the shit I listen to. As you'll come to know a big part of my life is music. Showers, car rides, falling asleep; music says every thing your silence can't. I can't remember the last day I went without hearing music anywhere, and that in itself should speak to you, if you can't either. You'll never really have a relationship as extensive as you will with your favorite song or band. To me, that's fact.) 

David- The Radio Dept. 

There's an Italian restaurant in my hometown that undercuts any place you remember to eat at. You forget the place is still open sometimes. You wonder how they are more often than you acknowledge it still serves. But the appeal is in it's secrecy, it's a memory of a first date that tastes intimate and homey. It's a nostalgic piece of cinema and it never lets you feel any different. I'm telling you this because I get the same feeling every time the headphones come on and Radio Dept. is now playing.

The Radio Dept. are a Swedish mess, the sound playing when you pack your suitcase with all their ambition and optimism. The trio of Johan Ducanson, Martin Larsson, and Daniel Tjader inspire movement, they breathe life and at the same time slow down for the surf at sunset. Most times the music just leaves you wondering and the it's such a dream-ridden headache. The guys from Sweden started the band in 1995, so I wouldn't call them the youngest and most up-and-coming musicians but you would think so with such a fledgling discography (3 albums, and a bunch of releases). Amidst all the reverb and distortion there is, however, more than love at first listen. There is a youthful message of growing up and the idea of what we thought would happen is a different path than the one we walk. Stories of chasing love and the tribulation that soon follows. The Radio Dept. is history in motion, and dream pop never taught us so delicately. Their track "Heaven's on Fire", is the inspiration behind the naming of this blog. I owe the Swedes as much of me as they take away. And I can only scratch the surface of my content with that. 

"It seems like everyone is on your side,

We're outnumbered by those who take no pride"