‘Pleasant Is The Life I Lead’ doesn’t follow the slightest semblance of convention. The experimental pop album does away with guitars in entirety, choosing instead to rely on unusual and offbeat time signatures, keyboards, and cassette tapes. It’s replete with distortion, to the point of absolute disorientation on the listeners end. It’s an album that’s meant to leave you in a state of bewilderment; a confounding and perplexing sequence of harmonies and rhythms that simultaneously leave you mystified and euphoric. In a world of contrasts, Sean at the Hotel takes a sad melancholy and injects it with warmth through his befuddling soundscapes.
For this EP, his second in 2021, Sean experimented with an old cassette tape player to create noise and distortion. Inspired by the emotion and energy of the pop-punk songs he grew up on, Sean yearned to create the same feeling in his music. His inability to play the guitar lead him to experiment with cassettes and a myriad of other ways to turn his keyboard into something heavy. The result is a wonderful confluence of hyper pop experimentation with the energy of punk artists. A warmth, a sadness, and a weirdness all interweaving together without any standard combinations.
Starting the album off with a bright sunny energy, ‘Not Good’ bounces off a staccato rhythm that discusses self-esteem issues with a sincerity and chaos that is strikingly appropriate. The next track delves into seemingly mundane topics like punctuality. Sean’s sincerity, accentuated with his strange and awkward vocal delivery turns the boring into fascinating. ‘Living Room’ is my personal highlight, a more opulent and rich soundscape that’s lusciously evocative. The final piece, ‘The Last TIme I was in a Club’ is definitively the wackiest. An overly vocally processed story about watching the Euros, catching Covid, and going out, Sean’s song structure in this record is wildly imaginative and all over the place. All in all, the album is a maddening whirlwind of sonic experimentation that you have to embrace with open arms.
If you’re looking for something out there that’s offbeat, doesn’t adhere to any semblance of normality, and still maintains excitement and enjoyability, look no further.