Casey Holford, “New Year”
Dibs, “Staircase Song”
Let’s begin at the beginning. Casey Holford’s 2006 split single with Yoko Kikuchi may have been what gave the This Song/That Song project its name, but the idea for the site was birthed from another, older song of his, one from his wonderful 2005 full-length, All Young and Beautiful.
An album’s final track can’t help but serve in some way as a commentary on what’s preceded it; it is the artist’s closing argument by default, and stands to color a listener’s impressions of everything that has come before. All Young and Beautiful, for all of its bright, bouncy arrangements and snappy production, is essentially a catalog of crises, cycling through highly relatable anxieties about privacy (”Junk”), identity (”Beard Song”), artistic integrity (”Too Good”), and political inaction (”Something’s Wrong 1″). But the pain here is of a redemptive sort, and Holford manages to throw the whole intimidating mess into sharp perspective with his closing argument, a heartstring-tugger called “New Year.” Read more…
