CC Mose Reinvents the Love Song with Debut Single ‘West Seattle’ [Stream]

The world is full of love songs, and while incarnations of these songs spring from every genre imaginable, I find using non-traditional sounds to communicate these feelings — anything other than dreamy singer-songwriter tracks — to be the most difficult to do well. Yet, CC Mose, the moniker of songwriter Chris Robbins, has achieved the perfect balance of melancholy and warmth through his lo-fi pop love song, “West Seattle.” The debut single is off of his upcoming album, Beat Me, slated for release August 19th via Plastic Jurassic Records, “West Seattle” serves as the perfect introduction to the album said to be about the realities of life, love and death.

As soon as the song begins, we’re led in by a simple guitar line before being swept into a fog of scuzzier, mixed up strumming. Once the distorted vocals kick in, we’re lead through a haze as Robbins sings of the hopeful, exciting emotions that come with a new love. Conjuring a sound akin to a downtrodden Beach Fossils song, and adopting My Bloody Valentine’s knack for distorted arrangements, Robbins creates a unique sonic environment in which the hopeful lyrics are cleverly undercut by crunchy lo-fi guitar. By the end of the song, it’s clear that there’s a transient quality to the whining guitar, and as the song slowly peters out, each element of the track leaving one by one, we’re reminded of the short-term nature of love, as all things must come to an end.