Pillow Fite and the cinematic whispers and emotional flood of "Overpass"

 

"Out of the smoke, holiday overcast / Saw you from the windshield on the overpass / An empty next couple pose for a shot / She wore a fur coat and a glittery top..."


I suppose a lot of songs tell stories although many do not, they instead express words and melodies (poetic or not) that might be tied to vague imagery that pushes the listener's emotional buttons but not really in a story format. "Overpass" does both really but the dense storytelling is just overflowing. Halifax folk-pop duo Pillow Fite builds a story that cuts to the quick, that goes for direct storytelling over obtuse word play. Trans guitarist / singer Art Ross (they / them) crafts dioramas full of drama and broken romance inspired by seeing two absolute strangers viewed on Christmas day.

"While I was driving up the 401 on my way out of Toronto, I saw a couple on the overpass. The man was taking a photo of the woman as she posed on the concrete wall above the highway. This image stuck in my mind and I tried to create their life story, or a reasonable facsimile, through my perspective," explains Ross. "There is something incredibly awkward, yet endearing about this image. I had many questions about how they got there. Who were they? Why the bridge?"

At the beginning of the song, the sonics feel glacial in temperament, a dreadfully forlorn blend of piano and synths constructed by guitarist / multi-instrumentalist Aaron Green (he/him). Art's vocal countenance is incredibly telling, magnetic, deeply soulful and heavier instrumentation wraps around their storytelling I am taken aback at how "Overpass" has sucked me into it's fray so completely. 

To me, there is a 70's pop aesthetic happening and I couldn't help but think about artists like 10cc and The Carpenters through a Burt Bacharach filter.

For days, weeks and especially tonight I am crushing hard on Pillow Fite as I listen to the refrain, "If this isn't love, I don't know what love is..." 

"Overpass" acts as a follow-up to Pillow Fite's last single "Spilt Milk" and sustains the sonic palette introduced on the their debut EP, Flutter. 

-Robb Donker Curtius

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM 

https://www.facebook.com/pillowfitemusic/

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4qYYUWoet5mNRpDASCnGC8

https://www.instagram.com/pillow.fite/

https://www.folkharbour.com/pillow-fite-apr-14/


Art Ross and Aaron Green come from disparate backgrounds and musical forms, meeting in the middle to comprise a band that’s tender and fierce, exuberant and gentle. Green—a veteran of the Halifax rock scene, the guitar anchor of Floodland and Hello Delaware—and Ross—a trans songwriter with an acoustic guitar—started writing songs together over text, by accident. Pillow Fite emerged publicly at the start of 2021 with its non-binary gender-subverting aesthetics already in place and a languid lead single in "Playing the Fool." Halifax, a town built on and stuck in rock music made by men, responded with supportive fervour, selling out back-to-back shows that saw the duo expand its sound with help from the scene’s most in-demand players.

Pillow Fite, indie rock, alternative rock, "Overpass", Canadian duo, trans songwriter guitarist, Art Ross and Aaron Green, multi-instrumentalist, magnetic storytelling,