I'm going to go ahead and pretend it's Valentine's week again. And let's be honest, Valentine's Day usually expresses itself in all the lovely ways, but also in heartbreak. The most passionate of relationships can fall apart at the moment human imperfection finds a way to introduce its harsh realities.
Auckland-based hip-hop group @peace beautifully captures this disparity in one track, "Flowers." Rapping over a silky beat and sweet-tempered piano, and after an introduction of seemingly gratuitous synth (which finds a brilliant place on the way out), the boys have me blushing a little, and also feeling sentimental by the takeaway: "Everything decomposes, even roses."
I have to interject though and say it's difficult to stay upset with a musician who makes music like this. Damn musicians. It's even more difficult when they are charming and describe their background story as such: "Basically I'm a heartbroken loser who, um, just writes about his pain and struggle and we tried to put that into an EP," says the openly vulnerable Tom Scott as fellow rapper Lui, also charmingly, plays the air violin.
I'd like to thank the brave girl who broke Scott's heart, so that @peace could produce Girl Songs for the rest of us. You can check out the ridiculous (in a fun way) trailer for their EP here, and listen to the music over on Bandcamp. Special thanks to Stamp The Wax for leading me to this discovery.