Rewind buttons access the Napoleon complex in all of us. (Modern) Retroism is, more or less, just about stabilizing that memory of watching Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure in a wood-paneled dollar cinema, when our brains weren’t as swollen as they are now. But it’s the CD version of Look Sharp! that skitters out the gull-winged door whilst Surface To Air Missive journeys into the fizzy dabblings of Third Missive.
Not quite ripping open a portal and wearing it to jam/shred with friends in the old post office basement, the music of Surface To Air Missive finds itself alone, in the hands of one Taylor Ross. Hooking and licking pops & crackles that transcend human’s natural secretion of positive thinking back into measurement, happiness is found in the routine and tradition of retroism as revival, without all the frills and copying/pasting. Repeat value isn’t necessarily necessary: Third Missive is best on vinyl (due to its “nostalgic” sound), but it’s not exactly refurbishing the past; Surface To Air Missive sustains its own project-soul, but squibs love to rip at local/regional/national Civil War reenactments. Familiarity generally sells well.
Like, Third Missive is not exactly about love or even reanimating the past. It’s more about flipping that which is stale, because the weekly special never hurt anyone, and today’s soup is delinquent. Yet, like a print MAD magazine, Surface To Air Missive captivates this inner proof that a rock star mentality expands beyond the ego and stage and public relations and into your living room, through speakers so both urban and rural dwellers can link with memories that never existed. It’s a modern seance of musical, necromantic proportions.
“Surface To Air Missive” suggests something terrestrial “to” something ethereal. As if the music preemptively possesses a quality of both subjective and objective. Third Missive captivates listeners in a soirée of luxurious, anti-Billboard-driven hits by drawing upon an age when musical originality this surreal meant the world to listeners. And although those days may be fading into a software system of learning-curve computer programs (potentially more difficult than learning guitar), Surface To Air Missive tends to treat Third Missive as an all-album radio-play within a world that is both appreciative and ignorant of the way the music industry once held strong.
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