Molchat Doma — Stairs [Молчат Дома — Этажи]

Is the world as we know it going to end? Is there no hope for us in the face of all the challenges we’re no doubt going to face in the coming years and decades? Doomer doomer doom doom. The sky turns grey. My skin turns grey. It all turns grey. Gloomer gloomer gloom gloom.

But then there’s this: at what other time of human civilisation could an Indian in Dubai find it this easy to get his hands on a British-post-punk-inspired Belarussian coldwave album that was first released by a German label in 2018, then reissued by an American label in 2020? On the one hand, doom and gloom, but clearly on the other hand, this.

Maybe I’m just amusing myself to death. Maybe we all are. After all it was that frivolous platform, Tik Tok, that linked this once obscure band to (trigger warning: depression / anxiety) doomers, who picked it up as a soundtrack of sorts.

I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m qualified to speculate, but I’d like to be optimistic about our shared future. And I’d like to vouch for the quality of this music.