Will Schube looks good in leather
The summer of sadness is upon us! Or, at least it feels that way, as Tom Krell—also known as How to Dress Well—slowly reveals his latest existential opus, titled What Is This Heart? The whole thing comes our way June 24th, and the sun would be more of a deterrent to this sort of seriously downtrodden music if this skewed portrait of R & B wasn’t so freaking good. “Face Again” (the album’s second single), like “Repeat Pleasure” (the album’s first) finds Krell refining the aesthetic he so flawlessly presented on his last album, Total Loss. The song’s accompanying video adds a layer of emotion to a song already bursting at the seams with raw, gut level feelings. You know you’re in for a treat when the video’s first shot reveals a boy mourning a near-lifeless man. Krell makr the mundane seem gargantuan, and the infinite oddly approachable. Maybe it’s his philosophical background, maybe it’s just a natural intuition for the crap that makes us tick on both micro and macro levels; regardless, it’s hard to look at Krell’s increasingly impressive body of work and not be excited for what’s to come. No matter how tempting these summer days become, do yourself a favor and give “Face Again” a headphone listen or five.
As Krell introduces “Face Again”‘s thesis, a girl, sleeping against the window of a car, is harshly interrupted by the sun. She turns her head away as Krell sings, “Look me in my face again and tell me what you want to see/I don’t think you know what’s best for me/Just kiss me on my face and tell me what love’s supposed to be/I don’t think you know what’s best for me/No I don’t even know what’s best for me.” As ‘me’ begins to repeat, the world around them begins to die—the land is barren, the trees are leafless…And for some reason, I just keep on watching. Welcome to the summer of sadness; it sounds so good.
