Michael Angelakos Lied to Himself and It Sounded Beautiful

Passion Pit’s Gossamer arrived in the summer of 2012 trailing a very specific kind of damage—Michael Angelakos had written most of it during a period of severe bipolar episodes, suicidal ideation, a relationship disintegrating in real time. None of that is audible on the surface. The surface is all cascading synths and falsetto and percussion designed to make you move. I’ll Be Alright in particular sounds like a song about joy, until you sit with the lyrics long enough to hear what it actually is: a man repeating something to himself that he isn’t sure he believes, because saying it out loud is the only tool he has left. The music means it. The words are hoping.