9.28.2009

Holopaw :: "The Art Teacher and the Little Stallion"

Featured prominantly in Holopaw's press materials is a quote from Isaac Brock. It is typically reductionist, emotional and exactly the kind of thing you'd expect from a guy who once sat down and wrote lyrics about trying to drink away the part of the day that he could not sleep away. Brock's assement of Holopaw's unexpected orchestral indie-pop out of Gainsville, "You're heartbroken, you're in love, the world's not complicated."

As much as this sort of self-serving emotionalism is repugnant, you have to take a spin through "The Art Teacher and the Little Stallion" before you write-off Brock's assessment. With the kind of string arrangement that would make you cry if you did that, and lyrics like, "I whistled through your crooked teeth/I never noticed your crooked teeth," the song is built for hurt. The voice remains just at the edge of complete failure, quivering in practiced but unperfected strength. And you wonder if this is real, these moments and these histories, or if it is all an elaborate fiction. But yes, heartbreak and love, they can coexist, imposters both.

Listen :: Holopaw - "The Art Teacher and the Little Stallion"

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