THE LEGACY OF BILL GRAHAM
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Racing Heart

Sample this concert
  1. 1Welcome to Daytrotter00:08
  2. 2Listening Wind03:40
  3. 3Words for the Ones We Lost03:40
  4. 4This Pretty Mistake03:09
  5. 5Photos02:46
  6. 6Emma03:50
Racing Heart Nov 15, 2012
Liner Notes

Some days we feel like we've been around for a lot longer than we really have. It really fucks things up. There's some odd importance that we can place on our days, even when they matter very, very little. They've barely been here - we've barely been here - and still we think we're an institution of some sorts. It only feels like that partially, never fully. We always feel like imposters, like we should just blow away, or we shouldn't be counted in the first place. These are the days when we feel particularly insignificant, which is a lot. With enough close thinking, we could easily convince ourselves that we're decades older than we are.

Just earlier today, we shared a conversation with someone about old-timers and how they know how to party better, how they're better equipped to know what they're doing and they're more comfortable in their skin, knowing exactly how much beer and whiskey can fit within the confines of that skin. They've just had more days to fuck up through, to realize that they're barely getting anywhere quickly so they might want to just slow down some and drink in their languished hours.

Mathias Tjønn, the lead singer and songwriter of the Norwegian band Racing Heart seems to have a keen ear to this sense of false age, or wishful tenure - whatever one might want to call it. He writes and sings about the vessel-like quality of bodies and how easily they can assume the qualities you want most out of them. It also means that they can destroy themselves or lie susceptible to such destruction. They can fall into disrepair too easily, when all it might take is a new coat of paint every once in a while to protect the surface below.

He sings about the wind in his heart and the dust in his head with a sense of expected sadness, as if he knows that he put both there. He's been the one to make himself feel like he's watching himself and his days drain themselves out. He features bleeding and aching hearts all over the place on this session and on the band's latest album, "To Walk Beside That Ghost," and there's no end in sight as he sings, "Tired phrases repeat endlessly/Is it never enough/Am I never done/As a day folds up around the sun," on the song, "This Pretty Mistake."