Four Horsemen Of You-Know-What

Locate S,1 “After the Final Rose”

The first time I heard this song was the first time I saw Christina Schneider and Locate S,1 perform live last year, when they were opening for Of Montreal at the Bell House. I was immediately blown away by the verse melody – “women in love, women in airplanes first class” – and went back through Schneider’s catalog desperate to find the song. When she started releasing singles for her new record Personalia, I was frustrated because as fantastic as those songs were, they were not this one. But finally, here it is: “After the Final Rose.”

The melodic part that stuck with me for months is still the highlight of the song for me, but I’m fascinated by how it fits into the overall composition. “After the Final Rose” feels woozy and off-kilter, and as she does in a lot of her songs, Schneider’s melodies connect at odd tangents and flow in unusual, seemingly asymmetrical meters. It’s still basically a pop song with pleasing melodies, but it’s deliberately disorienting. Her voice is calm and vaguely authoritative as she sings lyrics that satirize the reality sow The Bachelor what she’s called “corporate feminism and its lethal effects on romance.” Her vocal tone is perfect for this level of irony – she sounds distant and unemotional, but there’s just enough camp in her phrasing to convey her intent and low-key contempt for the show’s perversion of things she holds dear.

Buy it from Bandcamp.