New Music | Shakey Graves – Dearly Departed ft. Esme Patterson

[F]or the most part, seeing and hearing music live is the top dog of experiences in the music world. You get a sense of the song’s standing in the artist’s eyes, you see them sweat over it, you can feel the music in your chest, and even at times it seeps into your heart. This works even more so when it comes to duets. Enter, Austin’s Shakey Graves, the alter ego of performer Alejandro Rose-Garcia, who delighted us at the Newport Folk Festival just a few weeks ago. When I first heard this single, it was a simple youtube video from a live Spotify session, admittedly it was great, I’m not sure why I didn’t write about it right away. Then I saw Rose-Garcia at the Festival, and it sealed the deal, the crowd participation, the clapping, the lyrics, everything just worked.

Finally I got home and I heard the recording from upcoming record, And the War Came, and all those little things that I love about live sessions come straight through, the energy, the obvious sweat, the extremely cute small interactions between Rose-Garcia and Patterson, it’s almost like they wrote in their own little jokes. It’s so perfectly crafted, it seems as though the song might have taken years to perfect, but if I had to guess, it came a lot easier, I mean the best ones always do don’t they? This song is easily one of my favorite single tracks of the year, and I feel like I have to talk about it. I mean, it’s one of those songs that makes me want to sing out loud, and I might catch myself actually doing it, on the train, in the car, definitely in the shower. I think now that I’ve put this out there, I might just possibly be able to shut up about it.

If you haven’t gotten the chance, give this a few listens, and if it doesn’t hit, I’m guessing you are just one of the robots that google sends over to read this website.

Pre-order And the War Came