Bamboo Smoke – Queen City Sounds and Art

BambooSmoke2_crop — Bamboo Smoke, image courtesy the artists

“Treehouses” by Bamboo Smoke sounds like the theme song for the project entirely. The lyrics speak of the mythical treehouses where as kids maybe you went to hang with friends and share ideas and feelings and let your imaginations wander where they will. It’s a place where you have your own kind of secret society safe from the interference of people, a world and a social setting that wouldn’t understand the inside jokes, share a spirit of acceptance but also an ability to help each other grow in a more nurturing environment of friendship, to create without having those creations need to “go anywhere.” As it turns out these are things we need just as much in adulthood but rarely get because being grown up means too often that you’re all but dead inside and have adapted to a work world that functions almost entirely for making profits for someone else and not a cultivation of you as a human. “Treehouses” is a modest pop song but it embodies a resistance to what seems inevitable as we grow up.

Musically the song sounds like a a mixture of pop songwriting nd sampling and comes off like a natural evolution and blending of downtempo, indie pop and hip-hop. Electronic and acoustic instruments, organic and processed sounds, all assembled to give a flow like a fond memory and imbued with the romance of the aforementioned treehouse of childhood but recreated for relevance as an adult, a temporary autonomous zone where you can really live, even though maybe you surrender many hours to a traditional job to be able to survive, and create new meaningful experiences for yourself through the kind of creativity that gets pushed out of most people before their years of secondary education. “Treehouses” is a charming reclamation of that psychological space, whether or not there is a corresponding physical space in which to do so, but cast in the specific context of the songwriters. But if you listen and abstract those ideas into your own life you will hear that call to bring back a little magic into your own world. Listen to “Treehouses” on Soundcloud and follow Bamboo Smoke at the links provided.