“Passing Through,” like a lot of music released over the last month, addresses the strangeness of the time we are living in—whether that was the artist’s original intention or not. The song carries a quiet sense of devastation but tempers it with the warmth of a lo-fi fuzz and twanging guitar that imbue it with a feeling of comfortability, despite.
Tyler Costolo of Two Meters debuts a “partner project,” called Ghost Fan Club, with this track as a home for the quieter side of his work. The project is based out of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida where Costolo has been writing and recording from home. Costolo wrote “Passing Through” around his birthday, reflecting on a perceived pressure to change when nothing else does.
The name and the sound of Ghost Fan Club have a certain lonesome quality, but one that is not without the characteristic comfort of bedroom pop. With vocals that carry a hush and resonance somewhere between Modest Mouse and Told Slant, Costolo creates an intimate portrait of detachment on “Passing Through.” He meditates on the passing of time in a period of personal stagnation, singing “I’m not living, I’m just passing through.” While on its surface, the statement feels like it reflects an empty way of moving through the world—there is a richness to the lived experience of drifting. Costolo puts words to the current way many of us are experiencing everything today, no longer real participants in our lives, but spectators of them.
There is a tension apparent in “Passing Through,” a seeming frustration with the way time continues to move, exerting a pressure to experience it differently or do more with it. Costolo sings, “Losing days faster now / Will time ever slow down,” echoing a sentiment that grows more pressing every day. While we all may be watching time pass us by, “Passing Through” offers a moment of quiet reflection and a feeling of mutual understanding, even as we are all experiencing this time alone.
Listen to “Passing Through” below, out now on knifepunch records, and follow the project on Twitter and Instagram.
