The power button is pressed and a hard drive whirs. The signature Apple startup sound chimes, as the hard drive continues churning away, booting up.
“Internet Love” has begun.
We can’t know what DBMK were intending with creating “Internet Love”, the second track on their Sleep EP (released 29th March, 2016). But what we can do is let ourselves fall into the three minutes and fifty-eight seconds that they chose to describe as “Internet Love”, and just feel what we feel.
Simple and slow piano chords step downward, and we too are stepping down into this computer-created wonderland that is The Internet. A lighter melody joins in, as well as vocal effects and it’s become a sun-flared, dusky hued, dandelion field landscape of lightness, curiosity, and potential. The internet feels like this.
Bass-y beats join in, taking on a heartbeat pulse vibe. Those beats together with the lyrics, melody inspire what could be seen as searching, and having an experience of overthinking. Just a guy and the internet. Not sleeping.
“I know I never listen
Don’t know why
I’m so scared of being nothing at all”
The vocals gradually become more and more real and open, with the distortion falling away, and the melodies also vanishing temporarily, leaving clean and simpler sounds.
At 3:06 there’s a shift that I wait for every time I play the song. Whether it’s to signify a rush of connection or a breakdown, something happens. The entire landscape changes, and the spell of the internet is broken.
And then the computer shuts down, perhaps inspiring us too to shut down and prepare to sleep?
Check out “Internet Love” by DBMK. (I can also personally recommend the Sleep EP as being that EP you play when you can’t shut down and fall asleep.)
