Stream: Weyes Blood, ‘Do You Need My Love’

0
weyesblood
Weyes Blood

On the surface, “Do You Need My Love” is a unrequited love song. That surface is so pretty and bewitching, even if a little sad, it’s mesmerizing enough to sit there staring into its timeless sheen. But there’s more to this psychedelic folk tune off “Front Row Seat To Earth,” the new Weyes Blood album coming out Oct. 21 via Mexican Summer. About three and a half minutes in, there’s a minute-long bridge, a stormy, haunted evocation of mind-space. The way Kentucky-bred, L.A.-dwelling Natalie Mering hum-sings during this part feels like peering into a stream of thought, before being pulled back into the chorus, and a new layering of keyboards like we’ve survived and come out higher pitched. This song has the most synths on the record, enlisting the powers of Ariel Pink (Mering sang back-up on 2013’s “Mature Themes”) bandmate Shags Chamberlain and Michael Chadwick to play, with Kenny Gilmore on bass, who mixed the whole record, which was engineered by Chris Cohen. Another layer to the song would be the overall environmentally conscious stream running through the album. Yes it could be a song about two people, but it can also be listened to as a story about the relationship between humans and the planet, a sentiment highlighted with mermaids and mouthfuls of squid in the “Seven Words” music video as well.

||| Stream: “Do You Need My Love”

||| Also: “Seven Words”

||| Live: Weyes Blood performs Sept. 15 at Resident.