Dedicated to Women Guitarists and Bassists
floatingroom 13

Premiere: “Sad God,” by Floating Room


October 28, 2016
Written by
Jamie Ludwig
Photo courtesy of the artist

Portland’s Floating Room is a band led by Maya Stoner and Kyle Bates that specializes in emotive, beat-laden indie rock made all the more intimate-sounding by virtue its writing and recording sessions largely take place in Stoner’s bedroom.

Together with bassist and collaborator Alec Van Staveren, the group will release its new album, Sunless, on Good Cheer Records on November 11. The album title is a nod to the Pacific Northwest’s notoriously overcast weather but the expansive, contrasting moods and dreamy atmospheres of its songs more closely recall the old expression that “even dark clouds have silver linings.”

Sunless kicks off with the track “Sad God,” named after a term coined by Stoner’s friend Nellie. “We were talking about a certain type of person who seems to be miserable not because they hate themselves, but because they think the world of themselves and are angry no one else is ‘on their level,’” Stoner says. “These people feel like deities exiled to Earth, they lash out at the mortals for being mere mortals.”

Though on paper, people with god complexes may sound laughable, their words and actions can have devastating effects on those who get close to them, something Stoner is all too familiar with. “This term came to represent a couple of people in my mind—people so charismatic that when shit hit the fan I was left feeling like a disheartened follower. I would feel disappointed in myself for having been chumped and also disappointed at the loss of something—bands, friends, lovers—that I was led to believe was otherworldly. This form of loss comes with the realization that nothing is sacred.”

Listen to Floating Room’s “Sad God” below and pre-order Sunless now through Good Cheer Records.

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