Bickle. Photo via publicist.
The FADER’s “Songs You Need” are the tracks we can’t stop playing. Check back every day for new music and follow along on our Spotify playlist.
In the era of the infinite scroll and AI-assisted generative tools, “collage” has begun to feel like a default setting for life and art. Bickle, a songwriter and producer from Georgia, continues to create communities from sounds with seemingly little in common inside his bedroom pop compositions. For example, his most popular tracks are “Naked,” the best approximation of Lionel Ritchie produced by MGMT that you’re likely to hear, and “Heartbreak Sedative,” a ’90s R&B-influenced track that’s been a highlight of the jungle revival since it dropped two years ago. “The Suburbs,” Bickle’s newest single, continues his string of uncanny sonic unifications strung together with a rare focus.
Nostalgia is just one element of “The Suburbs,” a song about first loves, stifling hometowns, and the contradictory relationship we have with our origins. “We’re stuck in the space where we both grew up,” Bickle sings, “They’ve paved all the places we fell in love.” Typed out like that, the lyrics might read like an attempt at midwest emo, but there are layers here: Miami bass bops over stuttering guitar chords, a “Percolator“-esque chirp accenting Bickle’s yearning, and a soaring string section over the chorus that precedes a voicebox-led breakdown. That’s the special thing about Bickle’s music — at his best, it feels like alchemy at work, a sincere transmutation of the elements.