Bash Co. – “Dungeon”: A Dark Indie Pop Song About Feeling Trapped in Love

To most of us, to love is to be loved back and feel free, alive and experience a feeling that has greater heights. In it all love is supposed to make our lives easier and better right? It’s meant to bring us closer as people, open doors and even make the world feel a lot lighter and less heavy. But the very thing that promises freedom, also sometimes becomes a cold prison you can’t wait to escape from. It can leave you feeling trapped and lost and this is what Portugal-based independent artist Bash Co. explores on his single titled “Dungeon”, a thoughtful indie track that looks at love from a much darker angle rather than the sanctuary we thought it is.

Now “Dungeon” is track that serves as the heavy, claustrophobic twin to his companion track “Velvet.” While “Velvet” acts as a triumphant freedom manifesto, “Dungeon” explores the suffocating reality of being trapped inside emotions that were supposed to set you free. The funny thing is, sometimes it all start beautiful and velvet, then comes the time that you don’t even know where you’re again, what you’re doing there, and how you even got yourself into that emotional state. You thought you were loving someone to feel alive, feel elated and be happy, but here you are caged in the dungeon of them.

I love how Bash Co. operates entirely out of his self-built home studio in V.N.Gaia, playing all the guitar work himself while programming drums through MIDI keyboards and Ableton. Yet the track has got that raw, authentic feel to it, and it’s actually amazing. Interestingly, the recording process hit a frustrating roadblock early on when he tried using an acoustic octave guitar but could not capture a clean take. Instead of tossing the project away, that technical headache shaped the entire atmosphere of the track and it’s very lovely.

The results is this dark, lo-fi textures and melancholic indie rock sensibilities that captures the frustration of wanting something and yet feeling trapped by the same thing you wanted. I like the way the instruments feel close, tight, and intentionally restricted, mirroring the psychological weight of the lyrics without relying on over-polished stuffs. There is also something refreshing about the way Bash Co. approaches the subject. He explains that “Dungeon” isn’t directly based on a personal experience, but comes from an experienced point of view, which actually does well in shaping how the song is felt, like a wide spectrum instead of a particular relationship experience.

All that “Dungeon” wants to do, is to examine the psychological paradox of feeling trapped in love and I think it works better with the twin track “Velvet”, together they explore love, pain, freedom and confinement. Whilst Velvet see love as a gateway to freedom, Dungeon sees it as a closed door that suffocates. I also like how he left the lyrics quite open, allowing listeners to draw their own conclusions and interpretation. The lyrics does well in using striking metaphors, like iron acting as an unbreakable barrier of pain and silence deafening agony, to describe a shattered discourse and a broken soul. Love is crazy and sometimes you go in to love someone and the next moment you’re looking for ways to leave that relationship.

Not that you don’t love them again, but how they make you feel is contrary to what you envisioned. It started well, all was good, you didn’t forget the good times, but the person you knew back then is no more who you know now. And this is what makes people trapped, they have the feeling that maybe they will change to who they fell in love with again, but what if that was then pretending to be what they weren’t? And now they showing you who they actually are? They loved you, showed you the best of love, but now it’s like they don’t even recognize your presence, they don’t even realize you’re with them, you’ve become dead to them and they just go about their business, yet they ain’t even ready to break up, you can feel your soul leaving you, yet you don’t know how to leave!

It’s an emotional piece that draws inspiration from the Kafka quote that guides much of the artist’s work, “We’re all cages in search of a bird.” The song tackles the uncomfortable truth that affection can sometimes cage us rather than release us. It does not judge the pain, instead, it looks right at it, acknowledging that discomfort is just as valid a part of the human experience as joy. It’s painful that the person whom you once loved and still love sees you different, they say they love you, but you don’t feel loved, you feel caged in a situation you can’t escape at the moment, do you stick or twist? “Dungeon” is that track that will have you in your feels, and let you swallow the bitter pill. So go stream “Dungeon” and get to know that’s something our place of happiness can also become a difficult place to live!

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