Easy listening defines Little Victories sound on ‘Love Gets Me Down’. Vocals never lose their relaxed energy. In an era where it feels more and more like bands just want to blow out my eardrums to be heard this song was refreshing. Not only was it mixed well, but the band utilized the quieter parts to leverage the dynamics and higher energy parts. A truly awesome song.
Busy, breakneck drums keep the intensity while the contemplative lyrics move conversationally. Occasionally layered vocals have no trouble sounding cool without sounding like they’re working too hard. Light guitar riffs dance in the background adding even more catchy melodic lines while still letting the vocals take the spotlight. I loved how calm yet energetic everything felt. Despite how chill everything was, the underlying current kept the song moving forwards without slowing down or losing interest. A great example of the chemistry Little Victories always demonstrates on their tracks. Another great release, and definitely not one you’re going to want to miss.
A great example of the chemistry Little Victories always demonstrates on their tracks.
Indie top 39
What does ‘Love Gets Me Down’ mean?
Love Gets Me Down means different things to many people! It highlights the struggle we face with mental health, especially when the people around us don’t understand why, and how that can deepen the isolation that things like depression can make us feel. It also reflective of how love can seem to a person observing it from a distance, particularly when they’re not feeling loved or are struggling with their relationships. Maybe it means something different to you?
Tell us about your creative process and how the song came to be?
S: All our songs were written remotely, ever since Little Victories’ inception in late 2017! We haven’t lived in the same city, or even the same country while Little Victories has been active. Our current locations are very scattered with Marcus living in Bournemouth, Naomi in London and Sam in Cheshire, so we have to adapt our way of writing around beautiful obstacles like bad internet, Whatsapp voice notes and work schedules – probably around 90% of our stuff is written like this! It’s really like a slow motion game of ping pong! For example, it’ll start from Marcus, go to me, back to Marcus, to Nay, back to me etc.
Our song ideas are always born from what we’re listening to at the time. We all have very broad musical pallets that overlap and the common ground around Little Victories is in the “indie” space. Bands and artists like The 1975, Bon Iver, Ben Howard, Phoebe Bridgers and The Japanese House massively influenced our first songs. We always throw other elements from our wider influences into the pot too, so elements of rock, pop, hiphop, folk, classical and world music always find their way into our music too!
I always seem to find that the best ideas never just appear out of the blue though, they result from weeks of consistently showing up to the grindstone and creating!
M: The instrumentation of Love Gets Me Down was mostly written by myself and Sam over the internet from our bedrooms in London and Cheshire. The song started off with just the bass chords and vocal chop as I was experimenting a lot with production techniques and different vocal processing. I’ve been playing in punk bands for years so this was super exciting! I had the lyric “Love just gets me down” but had hit a wall finding anything else I liked!
Once that became the backbone, I sent the track to Sam with a wierd guitar part I had over the top and he sent it back with a far superior part and all the ideas you hear in the song now! As Sam said before, at the time of writing Love Gets Me Down, Nay was half a world away living and working in Taiwan as a songwriter. She was sending melody ideas and thoughts over voice notes and WhatsApp messages across 12 hour time differences, which was an experience! She came back, she got together with Sam and patched the rest together in a London AirBnB – they got kicked out for being too loud!
The bridge came together in the studio and we spent far too long trying different things out. Sam came up with this awesome riff and the vibe followed! Naomi engineered the main synth sound from scratch during the session which was awesome.
Who do you hope the song resonates with the most?
We try to make our songs resonate with all kinds of people by writing from our own personal experiences that people can relate to. We cover topics like mental health/self love/relationships and generally being understood, and really want to reinforce a sense of unity with one another as we all experience these feelings in varying degrees. We would love to use this common ground to rebuild connections that we feel have been culturally lost recently.
We hope that our songs instill a level of hope that reassures someone listening that we all collectively go through ups and downs – and that’s life. We all have our own story with our own challenges, heartbreaks, highs and lows and when we realise that this is something that everybody shares, the situations and feelings that often overwhelm us can become less daunting and we feel less alone. Each day becomes about the little victories that get us through i.e. family, friends, music, small wins, faith, etc hence the band name!
Music to us is…?
Music is like a language that speaks to our emotions and connects us with a deep part of our humanity. It levels us, it humbles us, and brings us together in a space where people who might have nothing else in common can connect in ways we wouldn’t otherwise be able to. It’s such a wonderful way to communicate with others – it’s cathartic, amplifies our feelings and allows us to experience things that can’t be put into words.
Make sure to connect with Little Victories on Facebook » Instagram » Twitter
Now you can listen to all the 39 songs in one place, right here on Spotify!
This coverage was created in collaboration with Musosoup as part of the #SustainableCurator movement.
