You can feel quite puny within a Syd Arthur song. Or in close proximity to one. You feel dizzy, completely out of it. It feels like you're looking up at buildings that are towering and leaning over onto you, ready to topple at any second. They seem to be impossibly standing, suspended by magic, which is never the sturdiest of anchors. It's as if you're swaying on a boat, or like you really can feel the Earth slowly spinning.
It's just terrifying the immensity these guys and their songs pack. They are intricate compositions, expertly woven to make these stunning aural conversations between all of the major sensory points in your body. It shuts everything else down so that the music can be felt as closely as possible, without interruptions or burps or shivers or shakes or itches.
The people in Syd Arthur's songs are built about a sort of cinematic beauty, gifted with classic good looks and striking features. They are lazy days that sound as if they took great effort to become such. Everything's a breeze, but of such elaborate design. These are precise stories about the bottomless wonderment that damned well should be bred into every last one of us. It's cold ass water to splash with and be splashed by. It's a carousel that we ride constantly - the blur and the blush of colors, giving it to us.
*Essay originally published January, 2013