Listen to this song. Two Timing Machines by Teenager. The Magic of True Love (Album Out Soon)

LISTEN TO THIS SONG

photo by Sabina Holber

Two Timing Machines, by Teenager (Bevan Herbekian):

https://soundcloud.com/teenager-usa/two-timing-machines-1

A song to honor: the mystery of timing, the art of love, the mystery of love, the art of timing. The orchestral sound of the "sweetly defiant" songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Bevan Herbekian (formerly of the 21st Century, now going by the moniker Teenager). Look out for new songs each week. Bevan is doing a staggered one song a week release, leading up to the final album release, "The Magic of True Love". 

"And how do you make love?
Do you build it to last?"

For we are two timing machines
with impeccable timing.

TEENAGER BIO, because I like to learn the stories behind the music, and maybe you will too:

Bevan was born on Halloween night in a tiny northern California town, where courtesy of the holiday, the first person he saw upon entering the world was Superman. He grew up the only child of ex-hippie parents who flooded him with an eclectic selection of classic albums, bootlegged John Peel Sessions and personalized mixtapes. It was a hand-me-down Nirvana cassette that jerked him out of childhood and compelled him to pick up the guitar and start a punk band. Since age 13, Bevan has been tirelessly writing songs, recording independent–and generally unheard–album after album, whilst forming and fronting numerous projects, from a Garage Rock power trio to an Americana Freak-Folk duo to a highly orchestrated Indie-Pop octet.  After nearly a decade of playing out in the Bay Area, trying his luck in New York, and wandering around the world as twenty-somethings sometimes do, he found himself disenchanted with the lifestyle he had romanticized.  This former scenester, who’d rather spend his weekends meticulously recording each instrument for his demos than going to bars, came home to write in part about what he found knocking about those city streets, but mostly about what he did not.  His long-time coming and laboriously crafted LP The Magic of True Love crystallizes the experience of realizing it doesn’t all work out in the end and the struggle to find yourself in the fallout.

The Magic of True Love bear hugs a ‘more is more’ philosophy while still managing to feel like listening in on someone’s most vulnerable prayers and doubts.  It plays like a mixtape of Bevan’s musical loves.  Ardent odes to the exuberance of youth are backed by larger than life distorted guitars and ethereal vocal harmonies. Melodic pop hooks of desire stand atop hand claps, fuzz bass and towering backbeats rhythms. There are intricately arranged ballads that move from confessional verse to soaring chorus into frenzied finale.  And there are pared down laments kept on their feet by gentle acoustic guitar strums and light-handed piano chords. Binding all of this together is Bevan’s voice. As a singer, he is intimate yet versatile marrying his spirited, mellifluous vocal with soft, confessional tones and the occasional high-flying falsetto. As a writer, his lyrics are poetic and precise, weaving poignant imagery with a deeply personal history. His true nature comes through in this music – in fact this may be where Bevan is most authentic and free.  Without affectation or persona, he gives you everything he’s got and you can feel it.  With The Magic of True Love, Bevan tears pages from Rock legends, Folk wordsmiths and Motown masters,  shuffles them and writes a new chapter. It is a big sound that is bold and ambitious, but one that a kid–delivered by Superman–would be willing to try.