I’m currently reading Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven, a novel which tackles the now-familiar apocalyptic scenario (this time the result of a particularly virulent strain of flu) in a pretty unique way. The story takes place across several time periods, both before, during and after the collapse of society. One of the most striking things about the book is the mindset of the survivors of the plague that does its best to wipe out mankind. Those who are old enough spend lots of time thinking wistfully of things we now take for granted. These things vary from air conditioning, to oranges to Star Trek, but one thing that everyone seems to miss is the internet.
The reason I mention all this is that the members of Pretty Sad live their lives scattered around Europe, in the UK and Denmark to be precise. They function as a band by exchanging ideas and music via Garageband and Dropbox. Some people may see this as a tragic sign of the decline of indie music being made by best friends in shabby garages, but the fact is that, without the internet, bands like Pretty Sad (and others such as Eric and Magill and Old Amica) just wouldn’t exist. I reckon it will take about twenty seconds of their self-titled debut EP to see why this would be a bad thing.
What we get are three lovely dream pop songs, complete with sweet and lovelorn vocals. On first consideration the EP is perhaps more suited to summertime listening, but it’s presently doing a pretty good job of making me feel warm and fuzzy during a particularly cold and grey December day.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/174301246″]
The moral of the story is that the internet can sometimes get a pretty bad deal. Sure, there are people out there who use it when up to no good, but if we really stop and think about it, we’re pretty lucky to be able to use the good old world wide web.
You can download the EP via Shelflife Records, who will be releasing the band’s debut full-length at some point in 2015.