One band I discovered this year was the German band Meute. The band name means ‘pack’ in German (like pack of wolves or dogs). Spotify tells me they are from Hamburg. The way I discovered them was they appeared in my Youtube feed with a cover of the song ‘Sail,’ with the original by Awolnation. I wasn’t so impressed by that song, I did however later stumble upon ‘You and Me.’ The song is another cover from an artist called Disclosure. The cover music video along with the song had an almost religious effect on me. I’ve never actually been to a proper live music performance (a ‘gig’) so I have in the past been critical of the almost religious adulation some people have for live concert music but more and more recently I can understand it. The music video itself is set in a sort of stone paved mini plaza with all men and women surrounding the band. The band itself is all men in red uniforms with lots of small badges on them. My boss describes the music as ‘jazzy.’ Its a brass band, I know that much from Standard Grade music, with trumpets and drums and trombones I guess (?). The song itself starts off slow, with what I assume is a trumpet (might not be a trumpet) solo and builds to a climax. All the spectators around the band are clearly moved by the music and some are even dancing convincingly. Its a positive atmosphere. Many a low mood in my life recently has been cheered up by the energy and optimism in this song. A lot of people talk about music nostalgically (the Beatles, Dylan), but songs like this prove perfect art and beauty is also in the future. I also like the sincerity of the band. Surely a trait of positive masculinity. I guess there is something attractive too about a gathering of people in a digital age of screens and social media. The music video is set in Paris apparently.

The second fantastic song is ‘Places’ where the lead singer sings about going dancing with his partner. The passion and sincerity in his voice is perfection. He stands by himself at the beginning just slightly in front of his band mates before going into the singing solo and the hairs on my neck stand up. I received a short video on Spotify a few weeks ago because I have listened so much to their music. It wasn’t the lead singer who addressed the audience of the video however. There is also a ‘harbor version’ of ‘Places’ on Youtube that seems to be set by a canal but is beautiful too.

Running a group of human beings can be difficult. A band. A class of students. An office full of employees. Enlightened leadership is needed. People need to put effort into listening and reaching compromises. Strong and stubborn personalities clash. If everyone just blindly follows there is often not enough critical thinking, diversity of ideas, too much homogeneous-ness. But if there is too much difference in thought the group can split. But if the ingredients add up and the result can be progress, perfection. 

Meute have many other good songs but none can match up to these two.