The best music is always made at collision points, those places where the expected sound and traditions of one genre are twisted into new shapes by another. It is an art in itself to be able to blend two apparent opposites into something new. It is a whole different matter if you can do so with numerous sounds and styles, but that is what CS Hellman has managed to do so succictly and to such a satisfying end with his latest single “You Caught Me At A Bad Time.”
Give it a spin, and you find a chiming and charming single. Play it again and you realise just how damn infectious and contagious it is. By the third time, you are working out just how it is put together, just what sonics and sounds are woven through it, picking it apart and seeing what it is made of.
Although based on a singer-songwriter groove, it shimmers with dream-pop deftness, a delicacy which ebbs and flows in and out of more weighty shoegaze textures. It abounds with indie hooks and riffs. It pays homage to post-punk experimentation and even has something of the lush and loose vibe of the slacker end of rock music.
It is also a song with a gentle warning at its heart: recognise the crucial battles from those not worth fighting, put problems to rest , where you can, rather than escalate them, laugh off the inconsequential rather than ignite it into a bigger conflagration. And that goes just as much for the minor domestic incident that inspired this song as it does for those controlling the bigger picture and world events.
If only those powers-that-be were as wise and level-headed as our man here.
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