WRITER: EM SHAWDY// HOUSE+LIVE FESTIVAL CORRESPONDENT

SPECIAL NOTE: At The Sights and Sounds we take music at a deeper level. We just don’t live to tell you about music, we literally fucking live for music. It changes us. Defines us. And in the eternal words of Lana Del Rey, ‘helps us make our lives into a work of art’. So we’d like to introduce you to, at a deeper level, our writing crew. We think a music blog is about community. Where when you connect with a writer, with their selections, their writing–you’ll see bits and pieces of yourself in them.

So our Senior Editor Kavi asked each of our writers to send in three music videos that defined them, their approach to life, the way they heard the music, and why they even write about it. No other info. So take a look through our writers and see if you find a connection. Kinship, even.
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PHOTO CREDIT// ANDREANNE LUPIEN
Dip my head underwater. Feel the pool rush around me. The pool of thoughts rush out my head. Don’t make me think. Just for a second. Chlorine’ll kill this anxiety. EDM beats thwack the surface. Ripple their way to hit my ears like replacement heartbeats. They’ll remind me to seek air. Reverse plunge my way, out of these thoughts. Back towards people. The first world, first rate music festival flooded with people that feed me. Feed every part of me except this schism, this growing chasm between who.i.am/who.i.was/who.the.hell.am.I.supposed.to.be?

I’ve got a war in my mind, feeling fucking crazy. So just give me a second, to stare. At the bottom of this pool. Collect the deluge of darkness and light and all the parts of myself that escaped out my mind when I dunked my heart. That flutter now by my feet, drowning alone. That’ll embrace my hand if I reach out to them. Let me stuff them back inside, with grace.awkward flair.all the confusion that comes with this time of life. I’ll rebuild me. Get myself back to the surface.

It’s a fine romance
But it’s left me so undone
And I’m damned if I do
And I’m damned if I don’t
So here’s to drinks in the dark
At the end of my rope
And I’m ready to suffer
And I’m ready to hope

FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE//SHAKE IT OUT

Let me Shake It Out. Always do. Eternal Optimism of The Not So Spotless Mind. But these spots, they aren’t cancers of my spirit. Won’t kill me. Won’t turn me fatalistic. They speckle my cerebrum to call out to me. Call me to a better life. They’re just. Just. Just growing pains. That all of us feel. That the sensitive feel more. When quarter life crises cut their way into weekends of living for the drink.the invincibility.the sweat of my friends as the beats of Eric Prydz caress us. These crises, they carry us.me.you. over the beautiful carnage of so many glorious memories. Kick us onto a crossroads. Decide. Dunk my head in a pool. I’ll do it. In just a second.
PHOTO CREDIT// LA SKIMAL

Because I was born to be the other woman
Who belonged to no one
Who belonged to everyone
Who had nothing
Who wanted everything
With a fire for every experience
And an obsession for freedom
That terrified me to the point
That I couldn’t even talk about it
And pushed me to a nomadic point of madness
That both dazzled and dizzied me

LANA DEL REY//RIDE

Sometimes I gasp. Feel short of breath. From the fleeting fits of pressure. That kick at my lungs. Try to get me to shout. Left! Right! I’ll split the difference, cut my knees on gravel! And I let out silent screams underwater. Air bubbles. Feelings float to the surface. Like a map for others to find me. But this is my decision. To craft myself. Craft a fucking future. What I don’t know, is that in a few years it won’t matter. What will is how many hearts I can knock over, out their fucking chairs with a Facebook message and

Thank for all the time we killed
Cigarettes and scarlet pills
Showing me a brave new world

NEW WORLD PUNX// MEMORIES

We’re trained to think i.have.to.know.i.have.to.know.i.have.to.know who the fuck I am. Like, now. We sign truces with our neurons to end the war in our minds. Think that it’s between drowning and breathing predetermined airs of career. Settle down into our homes. Cut ourselves off from our darkest fantasies. And stop

Praying every night that we’d find our people
Out there, on the open road

But the open road is wherever my mind maps it. It’s a spirit, not a road to a destination. If I’m always ready to suffer, to hope. To Ride. Let the flicker of a fire feed me. Feed me like these nights of drink.invincibility.and the flickering tongue of Kaskade’s beats on my neck have, then I’ll never hate myself. And I can take myself. Out of this water. To see my friends. Dance. Dance the night away.

I lust for life. I am free. I am Emily.

PHOTO CREDIT// MORGAN MASSEN

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