cars and trains: my birthday present to myself.

CARS AND TRAINS is exactly the type of music I like.

I'm a big fan of the undefined genre of semi-experimental folksy electronic indie stuff. This is the type of music I listen to while making art. There's a sort of peacefulness to it, paired with a chaotic element that mirrors my mind's unruly creative process.

What makes cars and trains even more appealing to me is that I can see a bit of myself in Tom Filepp, the man behind the many instruments or sound-making devices that create this music. Filepp spent high school screaming in hardcore/metal bands. He later broadened his musical interests to include hip-hop, many types of electronic music, and folk, such as Guthrie, Seeger, Dylan, etc. I like to think of my pre-teen self who refused to listen to anything but hip-hop until 10th grade when a friend of mine paved the way for my obsession with angsty emo music. And then...well, I just listened to a lot of different stuff. I guess it's considered common for teenagers to delve into subcultures based on a certain genre of music they listen to, only to realize when they're a bit older that they were stupid to limit themselves. But for some reason, this common ground makes me like this guy more.

Filepp will be releasing his new album Rusty String in the near future. You can listen to two tracks from the album below. "Fake Plastic Guns" has been said to have "a bunch of kind of crazy childhood sort of stuff in it." As someone who is slowly becoming an actual adult, I love kind of crazy childhood sort of stuff. Happy 22nd birthday to me.

dl: CARS AND TRAINS - The Wires From My Broken Record Player (YSI)
dl: CARS AND TRAINS - Fake Plastic Guns (YSI)
(multi-instrument electro-folky music)
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