Atoms for Peace - Ingenue

I’ve been way too behind on 2013 music thus far – I feel like I’ve only really heard a handful of new albums. While I intend to shift that focus soon, this particular album by Atoms for Peace, Amok, has slowly buried a nest in my heart. It’s easily the best album I’ve heard of this very young year; I want to say it’s not entirely because I’ve heard very little else. It’s also a creatively musical album that finds Thom Yorke and his side band (not Radiohead) relishing in Fela Kuti-inspired songs that both suck you in with their mesmerizing sensibilities and still, leave you craving for more. The album has gradually garnered more and more attention and this is the video to “Ingenue,” with more dancing by Yorke.

It’s as if spring has finally sprung. I’ve been behind on finding music, on listening to the mountains of music I already have, I’ve even been slacking it with my fifa playing but I don’t really feel down about it. The definitive love has certainly sprung. My heart flutters with a light, brisk beaming ray of light that seems to be turning the grayness into this bursting red color. While I discover some kind of balance to my brain’s waves of consciousness and what my heart is screaming about, I also realize that I’m incredibly happy because of how magnetic my heart feels. It’s as if spring has finally sprung.

On this song, the third one of nine on the album, Yorke sings about a love that seems to be holding him down, while still bringing him back up for air. The video itself is a great depiction of the words he’s singing, with his pairing with another dancer a match made in heaven. Visually, it’s hard to keep your eyes off it and lyrically, it’s densely full of layers. And ingénue is by definition: a character in literature, film or any kind of theatre role whereby it’s an innocent or unsophisticated young woman. Some kind of purity, it could be a naïve woman who is still finding herself. He sings about being stuck in a mess and like being inside of a bell jar, suffocating. She tries to comfort him but at the end, he just needs more time to figure it out. It’s beautifully exposed and delivered and the video couldn’t be more perfect. It’s an album very much worth seeking if you haven’t already, in due time it will be one of 2013’s finest moments. It’s already been an immensely great year and here’s to more of the same. – Bryan