Nostalgia is a four-letter word thanks to its overwhelming presence in our culture, so it takes a special kind of artist to make something truly moving around our attachment to the greener pastures of yesteryear. It won't surprise anyone familiar with Mathew Lee Cothran's music that he's just such the musician — his new song released under his Elvis Depressedly alias "Jane, Don't You Know Me?" premieres today on The FADER.
Cothran's voice is digitally manipulated to resemble a Twitter timeline-addled interior monologue sorting through fragments of something that might be formative. Nestled within a keyboard-demo drum pattern and Here Come The Warm Jets guitar, "Jane, Don't You Know Me?" is a beautiful ode to our ongoing evaluations of our histories.
"Jane, Don't You Know Me?" is taken from Elvis Depressedly's anticipated upcoming album Depressedelica, out October 4. Cothran told us a bit about the song and the project in an email:
"This song began for me as an homage to the digital gospel of the late 80s, really silly over the top kind of shit like DC Talk.
The whole album to me speaks to a lot of the digital nature of the soul, and how we are merging with unfamiliar synthetic elements of our world, exploring the inner universe by becoming more and more like computers, and I feel like spirituality will be the first aspect of humanity to truly become one with the digital world.
I also paid homage to my favorite Barenaked Ladies song "Jane", which always struck me as a relationship song that rang very true to life, and wasn't bitter. I wanted to write a song about a friendship that is now withered away, and how we see bittersweet reminders of what was and what might have been in all the digital "memories" that are marketed to us constantly. Thank you for your ears.”
Elvis Depressedly's new album Depressedelica is out October 4 via Run For Cover Records. Preorder it here
