finally, the school year is over, and i don’t have to worry about having school the next day when i write these posts (i usually write them on sundays).
anyways, i discovered duster about a year ago through their all-too-viral “Me and the Birds” (just kidding, it’s an amazing song). something about how the guitars in that song sounded like they were wailing really struck me, probably made me cry once, and i dug deeper, getting into Stratosphere and Transmission, Flux. and honestly? at that time, their minimalism and extended instrumentals felt like a break from the crazy, heavily atmospheric rock i was into (at that point i was getting into shoegaze).
my favorite songs of theirs, when i was listening to them over a year ago, were “Queen of Hearts“, “Gold Dust“, “Inside Out“, “Stars Will Fall“, and “Closer to the Speed of Sound“. they’re wandering, wistful, and distant. their later 2000 album, Contemporary Movement, is on my ever-growing listening list, so expect a review of that sometime in the far future… there are 14 other albums in the queue.
in my opinion, “Orbitron” is one of their finest works and probably their most overtly ‘space rock’ song. it starts with a unique riff with natural harmonics that i can best liken to a countdown before liftoff, or like there are buttons being pressed and analytics being done before the launch happens. but right when you expect it to build into a climax or some kind of explosion, it just… quiets down, like the launch has already happened, and now you’re drifting in space, past the exosphere. and the sparse vocals that come after are soft and lonely (“And I know you’re terrified”/”Like the rest of us”). i dig this kind of escapism, even if it’s depressing. i only wish this song could’ve been a little longer, maybe there could’ve been a little more buildup. but on its own, it’s incredible. give it a listen if you haven’t already!
q-street 