Music Review // Blue Pilot "Anyu!"

 

Blue Pilot has created a rather unique song with "Anyu" as it takes several different genres of music, combines them and makes them work.  As much as this sound is electronic, it is also acoustic.  It has those rock elements to it on some level, as the drums are more like percussion than beats, but then you can also hear these bursts of what feels like a computer glitching: just static.    This is also all joined by vocals which are manipulated and have a similar feel to 100 gecs.

When I think about this song musically, I just think of layers and how deep it is without really realzing it.   You can listen to "Anyu!" ten times before you hear it all.  During the chorus there are vocals which come through that don't feel manipulated, they have more of a clean sound to them, and as we get to the end of the song there are these tones which come through with beats and it's just so much unlike anything I've ever heard before but so well done.

Lyrically, "Anyu!" tells a story which feels like a chapter in a larger tale.  Lines such as "But something always makes me want / To find a better time for us / To find a place in time / To tether Anyu to my mind" are like the chorus and this has a good meaning within the context but it also does feel like we're missing the bigger picture, as this could be part of an epic album.

Perhaps one of the most musically adventurous ways this song takes shape is by thinking of it in that era of Radiohead where they'd release a song like "Paranoid Android" and then combine that with the idea of music just being 8bit/chiptune as a genre or just something more computer-generated.  And while this can feel that acoustic and organic way, it can also feel like a machine at the same time.  Blue Pilot using both of those qualities in the best possible way makes this song stand out so much.