music for the apocalypse

let’s face it: the world isn’t exactly all sunshine and rainbows at the moment. irreversible climate change, corruption at the highest level, raging conflicts on every continent and journalists being killed, all delivered neatly packaged on your for you page every morning. it’s no surprise then that depression rates are at their highest in history, and our once blazing sense of hope and momentum which has defined our species’ success over the past however many years is slowly but surely dwindling.

but if there’s one silver lining we can take from this colossal cloud of dread, it’s that it gives us the perfect opportunity to enjoy some good existential music. in the same way that you put on a breakup song after a relationship ends, or how folk music sounds better in the winter, or house music at a summer’s barbecue, existential music sounds better when everything around you is hitting the fan. so if we’re going to live in this apocolyptic, dystopian hellscape we call modern society, we can at least soundtrack it with some good music.

this is undoubtedly thom yorke and radiohead’s existential masterpiece. for a band not unfamiliar with the genre of depressing music (cuts such as pyramid song, idioteque, fake plastic trees or videotape could have just as easily made this list) how to disappear completely is uniquely horrific. it’s the quiet, almost hesitant and self-critical guitar which strings the song along. it’s thom yorke’s airy and strong-yet-weak vocals. it’s the whirling synths which make the room spin. it’s the constant pleas of ‘i’m not here, this isn’t happening.’

but above all else, it’s a moment right at the end of this song which gives you that pit in your stomach. as thom yorke delivers his final ‘i’m not here’, the strings open up into this glorious, major chord. like you’ve been buried alive for months and someone has finally discovered you, and let the light in. a ray of hope. and just as quickly and suddenly as it arrives, it’s ripped from your hands, and you’re plunged back into darkness, the air sucked from your lungs. properly devastating stuff.

cameron winter shares exceptional company as the joint youngest to play carnegie hall with bob dylan, tim buckley and laura nyro. three artists with an immutable talent to summon the existential in their words, a talent which mr. winter undeniably shares. a talent which is in full display on drinking age.

there is something about a line like ‘today, i met who i’m going to be. and he’s a piece of shit.’ which evokes a feeling you just can’t describe. one so personal and relatable, despite not feeling yourself (i hope) so self critical. you could be the greatest, most honourable and moral person in the world, and cameron winter will make you feel like a piece of shit yourself through drinking age. but, as all great songs do, it isn’t only through his choice of words that winter releases a tirade of existential dread. it’s through his piano, with every note so carefully selected and placed, that he paints a picture of a vast, empty ocean of nothingness, with only an occasional pluck of a synthesiser to hold onto for safety. i can remember someone describing jonny greenwoods organ part on fake plastic trees as being so deep you could swim in it, and that’s how i feel about cameron winter’s piano on drinking age.

the closer from fontaines d.c.’s 2022 skinty fia is maybe the heaviest song you will ever hear. if you, like many, have ever experienced that weird sleep-paralysis dream where you feel like piles and piles of scrap metal and impossibly heavy objects are piling up on top of you, crushing the air out of your chest, then you will know what this song sounds like.

but what earns this song a spot on this list, isn’t the clenched jaw bass line, or the whirring and screaming guitars, or even the masterful drum parts. they’re all impressive, but they don’t call on that uneasy existential feeling we’re looking for. what does it in this song is something else: it’s grian chatten’s terrifying vocals. chatten doesn’t sing lines such as ‘i did you a favour, i bled myself dry’ or ‘i’ll be your dog in the corner’, he doesn’t even plead them. he screams them, he yearns, he sounds like someone has a hand in his guts, opening up an empty pit only to be filled by his recipient. if you have a spare 5 minutes today, the bands’ performance of nabokov in which they blow the power at the irish american heritage centre in chicago is brilliant viewing.