By Roxann Yus | 14/02/23
Let The Right One In – Boston Manor
Boston Manor make music for lovers, both the hopeless romantics and the survivors to share their success stories. This song immediately welcomes us with its charm, beauty, warmth and impeccable lyricism: “A flower that is yet to be picked gets to grow in the ground and blossom each year”. By line three, I’m already sobbing on the floor. It’s all the more special seeing it live as what ostensibly seems like a pit of angsty and hyperactive fans dissolve into a room of serenity and radioactive emotion, where it’s just you and the music. But no matter where you are, be it at a Boston Manor concert or in your own bedroom, the world seems to dissolve when this song comes on.
(if) you are the ocean (then) i would like to drown – VIOLET NIGHT
What is Valentines without a string of heart-aching metaphors? VIOLET NIGHT has created a song with edge and a dark storyline, whilst romanticising it as an evil yet irresistible type of love. Honestly, my favourite type. It’s soft but still invites you up to dance, twirl, and stomp your feet like a femme fatale lovers arc.
TIMEZONE – Måneskin
As soon as Måneskin’s new album dropped, and I saw a song titled TIMEZONE, my heart jumped out of my chest with excitement. But, like any correct music consumer, I waited until its turn in the album to listen to it, no matter how truly apt I knew it was going to be for me. As expected, it’s the song I have been longing for as I walk down the cobbled roads of Freiburg in my thoughts with no way of confronting them. I walk with pride yet sadness, engulfed with memories and thoughts of the future, all of which seem completely thematic in this song.
stormdrain/home soon – Ybör
The new solo project of Boston Manor’s frontman, Henry Cox, really speaks to a part of me I can’t access without music. It’s refreshing, alternative, electronic, and completely infused with love and individuality. It tracks the feelings of homesickness yet also captures the beauty of living in the moment, seeing the rain and dancing in it, instead of avoiding what the world has to offer. It’s a love of what we don’t have right now, but an appreciation of where we are and where we're headed.
love or chemistry – nothing,nowhere
Keeping in theme with the electronic, lo-fi, soft rock genres of this playlist, my final valentine’s recommendation is nothing,nowhere’s song love or chemistry. This song, too, plays with themes of brutal and irresistible love, but in its sweetest chemical form – that love is natural and unavoidable. nothing,nowhere are an artist that almost makes up the cells of Ben in my mind, as he introduced me to this artist long before we were together. So, of course, the music he makes is special by default. But this song is certainly not defaulted, yet one that challenges us to understand the true power and meaning of love.
Happy Valentines day!
Edited by: Roxann Yus
Cover design by: Ben Massey