Two years in the making, LexiconDon’s album Pink + Blue hits the digital shelves today. I’ve been playing versions of this record for over a year and seeing the finished product is something that all of Binary has been waiting on for some time. If you follow this blog, then you understand our love for good songs, regardless of fad, style, or context. We care about music that touches your soul… the kind of music that makes you want to turn the lights off in your room and let your headphones just envelop you in sound. We love music that aims to hit you right in the chest, hitting the kind of emotions everyone can relate to. I can promise you that this record is all of these things.
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While the record runs across the musical spectrum, from heavy electro, to classic synthpop, all the way through R&B ballads, its tied together thematically from front to finish. Pink + Blue is a snapshot of life before ‘real’ adulthood. Told through the eyes of a relationship’s up and downs, the crux of the record deals with what its like to struggle through your teens and twenties. Its a time capsule of life in Los Angeles and everything that comes along with struggling to understand where life is going.
Thematically and sonically, the album struggles with what a lot of us are in life. Its a push and pull between the desire to live life to its fullest while we’re still young, while constantly dealing with the prospects and realities of the future. Songs like Hollywood Sound, Hot Love, and Heart Attack detail the decadence and joy that being young and in Los Angeles can bring. Those songs sound like some of the times we’ve had here in the last three years. But for every sing along party jam, there’s the other side of it. Songs like December Sunset, Boy Vs Girl Pt1, and Set Sail approach things from a different angle, and provide the strongest moments on the record. You can’t have the party without the hangover, and you can’t have the makeup without the breakup. This record gives you the ying and the yang and its that quality that turns the 10 songs into something bigger and better than any of them could be alone.
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Pink + Blue’s biggest accomplishment is probably its ability to work as one complete thought, something that in today’s single-heavy market, most artists seem to have lost. The strongest songs may be the one’s you haven’t even heard yet. Set Sail, the epic closing track, is arguably their best work. Newer songs like Pink + Blue and the annoyingly catchy Hot Love punch through the fold, feeling fresh and providing new perspectives on LexiconDon’s life here in LA. When taken in as a whole, the individual songs begin to take entire new meanings, which after all is what writing a great record is all about.
In the end this record is the soundtrack to summers in Los Angeles. From the plastic sheen of Hollywood to life spent laughing in dark dive bars in Silverlake, this album paints a picture of a place and time. Its an album full of tracks that are meant for windows down, sing at the top of your lungs moments. So if you trust us at all, go check this album out.
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You can find the record on iTunes, or on any of your other favorite digital retailers.
Also, if you happen to be in LA this Friday, you can catch LexiconDon performing with Best Coast at Bardot for a very special performance. All you gotta do is RSVP here!
Posted by: Josh
