Strummed acoustic guitar sets the mood and meter of Pacing’s unusual slowcore pop song “Aliens.” Drums accent the lines and in the background we hear the sound of plucked strings that might be a keyboard or processed violin or harp, spare piano, flutters of electric guitar and at one point the noise of a car on a highway coinciding with the line “the car you drive.” It’s a spooky yet oddly comforting song and in the last sixth of the song two of the choruses are layered and it almost sounds like chaos yet it oddly syncs up with the vocals not quite harmonizing but close enough to seem like it. But the lyrics sound like the words of someone dissociating after an abduction by aliens with words about being in “the big space machine that they fly in the sky with the birds” and “I can see my house from here.” At one point in the song Katie McTigue drops in a quirky single word in observation in“cool” after the bit about being able to see her house, breaking the fourth wall of the song narrative, not unlike Laurie Anderson dropping in a “Hi mom” in “O, Superman.” The abrupt ending of the song could be ominous but the tenor of the song is one of acceptance of this unique and novel situation and with the way the world is now who wouldn’t want to be abducted by what seem to be benevolent aliens? Listen to “Aliens” on Spotify and follow Pacing at the links below.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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