Hot New Joint: "Words I Don't Remember" by How to Dress Well

So full disclosure, considering I have lyrics to a How to Dress Well song tattooed on my forearm, this may not be the most subjective of my write-ups but whatever.

Thursday morning, I happened to see a tweet from Tom Krell, a.k.a How to Dress Well, that seriously made my heart stop—

“Brand New How to Dress Well song ‘Words I Don't Remember’ at whatisthisheart.com.”

It’s been a minute since Krell has released any new music on his own—after touring endlessly in support of my favorite record of 2012, Total Loss, aside from a few guest spots last year, he has kept relatively quiet.

In short, this new, somewhat mysterious single, “Words I Don’t Remember” is nothing short of amazing, and it’s the next logical step in Krell’s journey as an R&B deconstructionist or abstractionist. His voice has never been clearer and more upfront as it is on “Words,” which is the progression he has been working towards with both his ever-evolving live performance, as well as on his recorded output. The reverb that he hid behind on his self-released EPs as well as his proper 2010 debut Love Remains slowly started to be stripped away by the time Total Loss arrived. Here, he is accompanied by slight atmospheric background vocals—and his trademark wordless singing used throughout—as well as his own voice used as an instrument, with the phrase “love ya baby” being sampled prior to the second verse arriving.

Musically, Krell has never been this smooth or on point. Picking up where the Janet Jackson homages like “& it Was U” and “Running Back” left off, “Words” finds a slow burning groove, balancing the partially somber and reflective tone of the lyrics (“true love in a world of simulations” as Krell puts it), with a true early-90s R&B vibe, all while incorporating a club-ready warm synth sound, thick handclaps, and surprising appearance of a muted electric guitar.

The payoff of “Words” arrives with a minute left, when all of the pieces and layers fall together—creating this beyond powerful, transcendental, and triumphant moment. It’s like the moment that comes after the single handclap in “Ocean Floor for Everything,” but just not nearly as bittersweet to hear.

So what is “whatisthisheart.com?” Currently, it’s only a website that plays a video synched to this song—light and shadow circulate in time with the music on a still image of Krell’s face. Is “What is this heart” the name of his forthcoming third LP? Is a third album even imminent, or is this “Words I Don’t Remember” just a pleasant surprise and a one-off single released prior to Krell’s current tour with Forest Swords?

Yesterday, within hours of the song’s release onto the Internet, Pitchfork bestowed it with the title of “Best New Track,” and rightfully so. But in a knee-jerk reaction to new music from a beloved artist arriving online, in their blurb accompanying it, they neglect to really say anything about the track itself, which is very typical of Pitchfork’s “music journalism.” (Also, in perhaps a lapse of judgment, they continue to allow Ian Cohen to try to string together words and sentences.) “Words I Don’t Remember” is the kind of song we shouldn’t take for granted, and no matter what its origin—the sign of a new album, just a standalone song—we should all be very thankful that we are alive in a time where Tom Krell is sharing his gifts with the world. Like pretty much all of his canon as How to Dress Well, “Words” is an emotional rollercoaster—incredibly deliberate and complex in both its lyrical message as well as its musical structure—but it is executed in a magnificent effortless fashion. 

"Words I Don't Remember" is available now as a digital single from iTunes and if you haven't already downloaded it, I question how you are choosing to live your life.