Origins is a recurring new music feature that gives an artist the chance to pull the veil back on the inspirations for their latest song.
Long a hotbed for DIY bands, the change in Nashville’s scene was written on the wall when Diarrhea Planet announced they were packing up the guitars. But “change” doesn’t imply “dying,” only simply evolving. A new generation of musicians are arising to keep Music City, USA worthy of its most common nickname, and among them is Idle Bloom.
Though they opened for one of DP’s final shows, Idle Bloom don’t always bring the sonic onslaught like they did on last year’s debut album Little Deaths. Their new track, “Seeping In”, maintains the indie harmonies from that effort, but places them in a gentler, ’90s-indebted context. Taken from their forthcoming Flood the Dial LP (out October 5th), the more empathetic sound of the song helps bring hope to the lyrics about, as the band puts it, the “fear of facing a government that isn’t afraid of encroaching on civil liberties.”
Take a listen to the track below.
For more on the political context of “Seeping In”, the band has broken down the track’s Origins.
Powerlessness against government corruption:
Fear of facing a government that isn’t afraid of encroaching on civil liberties. Powerlessness. Not knowing how to make it right but trying.
Invasion:
This song was inspired by the notion of being invaded by something that is beyond your control. The image of troops on the ground, the grey dawn of war, feeling defeated and knowing that even if it is beyond your control you can’t give up.
Fruits and Flowers:
My maternal grandmother is from Morocco and she was a teenager during WWII. She has told me many times about the end of the war when the Americans landed on the beach near her home in Rabat and arrived just before the Nazis invaded (because it was a French occupied territory at the time). They greeted them with fruits and flowers to show their appreciation and relief.
Race relations:
When writing this song it was just after the most recent presidential election and I was feeling the heaviness of race relations in our country and wondering if we will be faced with such horrors again in our lifetime and what I would do to combat that.
