MIDI Bunny want to hurt you.
The conceptual nature of Songs to Hurt Others is pretty explicitly stated on the record and while I can’t say I totally follow the storyline I can say it feels cinematic all the way through. The opening keys on the album’s intro feel like they’re coming to life on a screen I can almost see. Even with this new sound aspect, MIDI Bunny don’t shy from their roots, something apparent from lead single “Falling Down” but more so when you hear it in context.
The music itself here feels like the result of everything the duo has done up to this point. The more pop punk focused songs in the first batch of tracks transition nicely into the more synthy next section, the same type of sequencing as in the discography. Even in me being able to sit here and categorize songs on here I don’t think they’d really fit into those now older EPs because both of these artists are already so ahead of their former selves. This, of course, doesn't stop them from throwing us quite a few curveballs among the twenty-three tracks. Songs like “Lola” and “I FUCKED UP” divert from anything done anywhere else on here and make the longer track list feel like a breeze.
While Songs to Hurt Others is quite long, again twenty-three tracks and over ninety minutes in length, it justifies its run time. There are quite a few interludes, both serving to change scenes in the story and as a way to divide the track list into individual sections based on their mood. Each of these chunks would be just as effective on their own explorative EPs as they are together in a finished product. Each comes to a huge, climactic eruption ending on a fade out in the form of an instrumental break before starting again. If this wasn’t enough variety, each of these interludes are also sonically varied, it’s not all piano overtures. “A night in which…” is a full electronic song, “the first time…” is a broken off guitar showcase, these are their own songs as much as they are cut away pieces.
While reserved for grander moments, Cecily and Biddy have incredible chemistry when singing together. Songs like the intro track are used as honest conversations between each other about the thesis of the record and how it relates to them, their lives and their processes. The motivation behind this mission statement, art as a painful thing, is talked about at length but, to me at least, it sounds like a frustration with the process of creation. This isn’t to say it's a record with a completely dark tone, it also feels like a love letter to the process, and to each other for being able to create in unison. A large portion of this is very raw and very confessional. A part of me feels like you don’t get to a song like “The Collector’s Unconscious” without hurting, without living through the pain of transition, being groomed, mutual familial disappointment. I also feel like, based on the disclaimer Cecily presents on “Kill Your Darlings,” to feel this way at all is a gotcha and I’m not supposed to take any of this at face value.
I'm sure you've realized this by now, this is not a record about real people
This is a record about fictional characters who are coincidentally a cat and a bunny
With all these recurring motifs borrowed from the public personae that you have all become parasocially attached to
But there's a little bit of everyone in every piece of art
There are eight thousand one-in-a-million people
This isn't real, but pieces of it might be
You might even recognize them from your own life
Memories you'd rather forget
As I write this, as I record it, I keep recognizing little pieces
But I promise it's not real
We did do a track review of the thirteen-minute lead single, “‘Falling Down Part 3’” but now it feels like a complete moment on a project as opposed to being a huge piece of music meant to be consumed individually. Parts of the song are used as a leitmotif throughout the entire record, making its pay-off as a single all the more worthwhile. Waiting on the full-length is the even longer “Kill Your Darlings,” led by Cecily and may be her best performance to date. This one explores the mission statement of the project in a truly self-exposing way. It's also a very different song from its sister with more emphasis on a synthy, gazy, melancholic framework.
Everything feels like it could come to an explosive end on “Kill Your Darlings” but it's only at about the halfway mark. Act two, if this is where act two is, serves as something of a mood board, it isn’t quite as emotionally charged as everything surrounding it, but it only helps make the ride through all the smoother. What follows is “PMD,” a celebratory, math rock anthem which, with its final section, feels once again like a finale but it's only the beginning of the end. “Magical Girl(s)” is a total tone shift, has an instrumental like a battle cry and is a declaration of identity lyrically. The story concludes here but doesn’t allow you for a second to think this is a happy ending. Described here in a spoken word outro is the truth; you can believe once you experience true joy it will last forever, but nothing can. Life doesn’t stop when you decide it's the best it could ever be, things will hurt you, you’ll face hardship, the people you love will disappoint you and you them.
Things aren’t always all misery either. Just about every review for the past couple of weeks I’ve highlighted the fact I haven’t written a lot this year. Truthfully, there was a point where years of non-stop work caught up to me. It's no use consuming art if you’re so tired it all blurs together. I do this blog so I can find out about new music. I hope you find something to like when you visit here. Bands who spend hours making their art, bleeding for it, digging old trauma out of the closet deserve for it to be heard. They deserve to feel catharsis for all of it.
MIDI Bunny is made up of two incredibly hard-working musicians who together in this band have more material than most of the musicians I follow. They worked hard to get to this record, and I hope it carries them even further.
Kill Your Darlings can be heard on the AsterTracks 2024 Spotlight playlist
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