Har-Di-Har

Daytrotter Session - Jan 15, 2018

Har-Di-Har – Daytrotter Session – Jan 15, 2018
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  1. Welcome to Daytrotter
  2. It Held Me
  3. Look Around You
  4. The Wonder
  5. Sometimes We Disconnect

Har-di-Har make eclectic avant-garde indie pop, characterized by unconventional melodies, pleasingly awkward rhythms, and songs that change with the fluency of speech. The arrangements call for different instruments to pop in and out at different times, always resurfacing with a new way of saying what it had said before. This goes for the vocals, too, which bounce between sporadic notes and long tones. I have to say that the strangeness in the music is quite pleasing, in that it doesn’t feel jagged despite the density of the music. Each disparate part or conflicting melody come together to travel as a cohesive whole, and a very pleasant one at that. As I’ve said before, genre distinctions can often be a good outline to work with when thinking about music. Sometimes you have to make up new words or splice two old ones together to describe the way that music sounds and what sort of box you’d put it in if you decided to organize things. With Har-di-Har, it gets a little more complicated. Sometimes, you can pick out two or three genres or sounds that a group is mixing together to create their unique sound. But this group isn’t just putting musical Lego bricks together and calling it new: they’ve completely reinvented the basic building block. On that level, there is a sense of mystery and discovery lacing the emotional moments as well.Har-di-Har’s music reflects the difficulty or confusion that comes with human relationships. As a husband and wife duo this is especially poignant. It would be wrong to posit that this “defines” the band’s dynamic, but the songs really do feel like two people trying to “figure it all out” together. There are fleeting, veneer emotions mixed in with instrumentation that sounds like a fully grown adult taking their first steps: with a practiced maturity as well as a complete understanding of the fact that no one really knows what’s going on, but we’ll keep doing it anyway. The complex collage of sounds in this session is a colorful mudslide of art-pop that music nerds and casual listeners alike will find joy in. Tune in and discover your new favorite band.

 
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