New Music: Irish Basement – Pretty Embarrassing

Even though I felt rather seen by the reference in the lyrics to caffeine-free Diet Coke, Pretty Embarrassing still hit the spot for me musically and emotionally.

On Pretty Embarrassing, Irish Basement – the solo project of Washington, DC, based songwriter and producer Mike Toohey – clouds the lyrics in a haze of nostalgia and cherry-picked memories.

Something similar happens within the influences Toohey brings to bear on the tracks. Echoes of The Go-Betweens and Slowdive bookend those for me, even though the song often has a post-punk sensibility.

However, that sense of things being better in the past, even though those good times may have been short-lived and possibly few, pervades each note. Searching for the past might lose you the present, and future.  

For Toohey, “Pretty Embarrassing captures the heartache of fleeting moments and the fear of never reliving them.”

The song appears on Irish Basement’s second full-length album, Patterned Behavior, which is out now. The album is streaming on Bandcamp, where it’s available on cassette, and Spotify – check out the band’s Instagram page for music news and more streaming options.