Curse of Lono
People in Cars
Submarine Cat
I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels like Felix Bechtolsheimer could be singing about their existence when they hear “Think I’m Alright Now.” The song is a swirl of confusion and jaded hope. After the past few years of social upheaval, personal challenges, and economic uncertainty, I can feel myself in Felix’s words, “I’ve been shaken, but I think I’m alright now.”
Bechtolsheimer writes and sings the songs for the London based alt-folk combo Curse of Lono. The songs on People in Cars remind me a bit of the Magnetic Fields and end stage Leonard Cohen. The songs are delicately balanced arrangements that evoke the dark hours of a lost (or at least misplaced) soul hiding in an all night café.
Should I be concerned that I’m grooving on songs as objectively desolate as “So Damned Beautiful”? The duet with Tess Parks seems to be about a man going through some kind of hell with the ghost of a companion looking on. Bechtolsheimer sounds like he’s surprised to be alive when he sings, “Shadows crawl from the sky. Tears well up in my eyes. And it’s so damned beautiful.”
