(Photo by Cody Osen)
Last year, I was introduced to End the Wrld, a project of Des Moines producer/musician Phil Young. End the Wrld’s first track, “5 to 9”, feautres vocals from Anna Gebhart and is this delightful disco-meets-Lady-Gaga-meets-Queer-Eye’s-theme-song-meets-the third-level-of-Double-Dragon track that kind of astounded me and made me very happy. One track in, and I got very excited for the future of this project.
It took a long 7 months for the second End the Wrld track to surface, this time a more modern dream-pop track with Gebhart and Dustin Kniffen providing vocals. While nowhere near the dicso blitz of “5 to 9”, the track is beautiful and a worthy successor. 7 months, though. That’s just not fair.
Luckily, End the Wrld let a little less time pass to release the third track, “I Don’t Have Anything”. “I Don’t Have Anything” is another disco track (produced by Young, but also featuring Jordan Mayland and Cory Wendel) in the same vein as “5 to 9”, but Adrien Daller (of Trouble Lights) gives it her own lyrical spin. For such a happy, bouncing track, it is actually kind of a sad story being told. The contrast of this Moroder-esque music with a tale of damaged love is a really neat, and surprisingly deep for such a sugary piece of business.
I’m really excited that I get to debut this track. I am also happy to say that they plan to perform the track live on Saturday, May 10th at the grand opening of the Des Moines Social Club’s permanent home at 900 Mulberry (an event that also features Dustin Smith and the Sunday Silos, Land of Blood and Sunshine and a keynote address by David Byrne). So click the track and share this with as many people as possible. Maybe if enough of us show how much we like it, new tracks will be released at a greater clip.