Stream: Bad Wave, ‘Time to Get Lost’

0
Bad Wave
Bad Wave

In the past year, L.A. duo Patrick Hart and Tucker Tota, working as Bad Wave, have released a rainbow of singles that seek to expand on, or at least tweak, the familiar tropes employed in today’s “indie-pop.” Their latest is is “Tome to Get Lost,” a song inspired by the queasy feeling the duo got in the wake of November’s election. On one hand, there’s the dire, insistent slabs of synths and strings, which give way to a bubbly, hopeful chorus. Then, after the 3-minute mark, a string outro that moves in like dark clouds. Tota has a funny anecdote here about coming up with the second melody while on the toilet and ending up being surprised, eventually, to hear “some idea I whistled on the toilet … being performed by professional violin players.”

Of the single overall, which will be out Feb. 17 via Miami-based label 10K Islands, Tota says: “Whenever I catch myself feeling feelings I try to stop and think about how to express them through music or writing, and there were a lot of feelings about this election. This song is definitely an expression of anger at the outcome. Anger towards a broken system. Towards a person who is somehow expected to represent me. Obama said in his farewell address that ‘citizen’ is the highest office in a democracy. This is a song about remembering who’s in charge.”

||| Stream: “Time to Get Lost” and “Daniel”

||| Live: Bad Wave performs Monday night at Bardot as part of It’s a School Night.

||| Previously: “3AM,” “Extraordinary” and “Runaway”