Silver Lake’s Total Recluse—aka Richard—shared a woozy ballad of the most poignant heartache in their newest single, “Please Don’t Break My Heart (Put Your 4AD Records In The Microwave).” The song was written as a nod to Ariel Pink’s cover of “Baby,” which Richard and collaborator Jack Kennedy had been listening to at the latter’s home studio before its inception. Part soft-rock ballad and chamber-pop hybrid, the single is a lush unraveling of traditionally idyllic love songs—its chorus’ pained pleas of everlasting devotion revealing the kind of desperate vulnerability that can fuel such infatuation.
“Please Don’t Break My Heart (Put Your 4AD Records In The Microwave)” marks the first single by Total Recluse since their Coastal Lovers EP back in 2018. Like so many other artists with projects on hold due to COVID-19, Total Recluse upcoming Self Help EP is pending a safe opportunity for them to get back into the studio. A late-2020 or early-2021 release is hoped for by the band, but in the meantime the sleek 80’s melancholia for the modern-era that thrums so sweetly on their latest single will have to hold us until then.
“While ‘Please Don’t Break My Heart…” sounds nothing like the cover it did influence my writing as the song had been rattling around in my head for some time. I later wrote this new single at home late one night after one of many long depressing days. The song was roughly finished and quickly recorded on my laptop that same night. We later re-recorded/re-arranged the song and changed some of the verse lyrics and melodies. The song references the aforementioned Ariel Pink and 4AD Records as well as some of my heroes such as Robert Smith/The Cure and Morrissey. While I was sincere in writing the single during a depressive episode, we did our best to re-write the verse lyrics to echo Morrissey’s style of black humor and self-deprecation.”
Listen to Total Recluse’s new single “Please Don’t Break My Heart (Put Your 4AD Records In The Microwave)” below!
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