Passion Pit - Take A Walk at Reading Festival

"I'm just too much a coward to admit when I'm in need."
- Michael Angelakos

 

The career arc of Michael Angelakos has been exhilirating and more recently harrowing to watch.  Reaching international prominence with a self produced EP Chunk of Change (originally created as a Valentine gift to his then girlfriend) yielding the timeless love song Sleepyhead.   While attending Berklee College of Music the band Passion Pit was formed from other graduates surrounding Angelakos symbolist lyrics and gaseous falsetto voice.  Their formula of electronic flourishes rendered live dangling on the heart string of a genius- a very troubled one we would later learn- endeared them to millions.  Their first proper album Manners (which was recorded by just Angelakos, Nate Donmoyer and Ian Hultquist on guitar on two tracks) somewhat questionably reduxed Sleepyhead to lesser effect but surrounded it with a whole new crop of songs that seemed at first like a slight deflation from the loftiest heights of Chunk of Change.  As these songs grew into the collective consciousness- influencing other musicians or simply becoming the soundtracks to people's lives- songs such as Moth's Wings, The Reeling, Swimming In The Flood- they started to trace out some sort of vaguely cogent philosophy of a Universe connected by threads of gossamer, les fils conducteur, spinnerette, silk reeling energies passing back and forth, swimming in the flood of the hardcom wave.  There was also in hindsight always a sort of dense molecular sadness that permeated his supposedly mawkishly happy voice and rambunctious stage persona.

 

It of course came as a complete surprise when they recently cancelled the bulk of their summer tour save for a handful of dates being very open about the fact that it was in order for Michael to get some mental health care which he very much needed.   A long feature with Pitchfork made clear how far things had gone. 

 

"I was drinking heavily," says the frontman, recalling the SXSW gig. "I mentioned how I shaved for this girl I was involved with. The band was drunk, but they still were like, 'What the fuck is going on?' I started standing on my vintage keyboards and freaking the fuck out. It got to the point where I was just rolling around on the grass, going crazy. When I got off the stage, all the Columbia people there were very excited. I was on the side, and I was crying. I couldn't control it."

Far from your typical post-show euphoria, Angelakos was experiencing what he refers to as a dissociative psychotic reaction-- his stress reached a biological level that induced a breakdown. "Everything was a blur. We were doing promo appearances, and I didn't even know who I was talking to. No one knew me well enough to say, 'There's something wrong.' They just thought I was drunk."

When SXSW concluded, the frontman went directly from Austin to Houston, where he was admitted to a clinic for issues related to his mental health. He was there for roughly five weeks, where he shared a room with a "wonderful" former firefighter who had been convicted of arson. The band visited him during his stay, and attempted to sneak in positive reviews of Manners, since Angelakos wasn't allowed to even verbally acknowledge what was going on with his career while at the clinic.
 

 

 

Take A Walk is the lead track of Gossamer, taken in the light of his recent gripping struggle it's easy to take the song at its face - as courageous cautious steps forward.  "Like many Passion Pit songs, it's also more complicated than it initially seems, telling the story of a father trying-- and failing-- to make ends meet in recession-era America." It's jubilant bounce in this live clip from Reading Festival is evident, although in this clip you can see also too that a beleagured Angelakos prowls the stage a touch less spritely then in the past.



Passion Pit - Take A Walk

All these kinds of places
Make it seem like it's been ages
And tomorrow's sun and buildings scrape the sky.
I love this country dearly
I can feel the latter clearly
But I never thought I'd be alone to try.
Once I was outside Penn station
Selling red and white carnations
We were still alone, my wife and I.
Before we married, saved my money
Brought my dear wife over.
Now I work to bring my family stateside.
Got off the boat, they stayed a while
then scattered 'cross the coast.
Once I'll year I'll see them for a week or so at most.
I took a walk
(take a walk, take a walk, take a walk)
(take a walk, take a walk, take a walk)
Ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh
I took a walk
(take a walk, take a walk, take a walk)
(take a walk, take a walk, take a walk)
Ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh
Practice isn't perfect
but the market cuts a loss.
I remind myself that times could be much worse.
My wife won't ask me questions-
there's not so much to ask.
And she'll never flaunt around an empty purse.
What's my mother lacking
Just to stay a couple nights
And decided she would stay the rest of her life.
And watch my little children
Play some boardgame in the kitchen

And I sit and pray they never feel my strife.
But then my partner called to say the pension funds were gone
He made some bad investments, now the accounts are overdrawn
I took a walk.
(take a walk, take a walk, take a walk)
(take a walk, take a walk, take a walk)
Ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh
I took a walk
(take a walk, take a walk, take a walk)
(take a walk, take a walk, take a walk)
Ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh
Honey, it's your son, I think I borrowed just too much.
We had taxes, we had bills, we had a lifestyle to front.
And tonight I swear I'll come home and we'll make love like we're young.
But tomorrow , you'll cook dinner for the neighbors and their kids.
We can rip apart the socialists and all their damn taxes.
You'll see I am no criminal, I'm down on both bad knees.
I'm just too much a coward to admit when I'm in need.
I took a walk.
(take a walk, take a walk, take a walk)
(take a walk, take a walk, take a walk)
Ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh
I took a walk
(take a walk, take a walk, take a walk)
(take a walk, take a walk, take a walk)
Ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh
I took a walk
(take a walk, take a walk, take a walk)
(take a walk, take a walk, take a walk)
Ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh
I took a walk
(take a walk, take a walk, take a walk)
(take a walk, take a walk, take a walk)
Ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh