Song You Need: Jean Dawson mixes the signal on “PIRATE RADIO*”

20.09.2022 - 13:19 / thefader.com

The FADER’s “Songs You Need” are the tracks we can’t stop playing. Check back every day for new music and follow along on our Spotify playlist. A baptism is a ritual signifying rebirth; leaving past sins behind; the beginning of a contract signifying the end of solitude, self-doubt, and pain.

It’s not something Jean Dawson has ever sounded like he needed. His 2019 album Bad Sports introduced an artist that thrived in a perpetual motion pastiche — in this case, a flood of flannel-paneled indie rock and abstract hip-hop. He followed it the following year with Pixel Bath, a superior effort with more genres in its toolbox.

The concept of baptism is prominent in “PIRATE RADIO*,” Jean Dawson’s new song. His renewal, however, doesn’t come from a divine source. As ever, it’s within. Read Next: Jean Dawson announces new album, shares “THREE HEADS*” Even in the context of Dawson’s shifting catalog, “PIRATE RADIO*” is striking.

It has all the ingredients of a flop: it’s a Bon Iver-indebted folk song with mere traces of rap on its hook and a soaring sincerity beneath every plucked acoustic guitar string and swooning fiddle. But Dawson lands it without a stumble, his voice filled with Justin Vernon's tremolo from the jump as he describes his search for redemption: “Push my head underwater / See how long it’ll hold / Way down in the deep end / Rinse the sins from my clothes.” The song’s power lies in the hook, as cathartic as anything released in pop music this year. “Pull up nobody panic / Why did you vanish?” Dawson sings, his voice distant as if looking over a vast and empty expanse.