Three Track Week: Signals #12
- Raven
- Aug 13
- 6 min read
Updated: Aug 14
Three songs about the space between what we expect and what we actually find.
A signal might not mean what we think it does. Other people can start making choices for us. And sometimes the place we've dreamed about looks very different once we get there. This week's Three Track Week: Signals 12 brings Max MacReady, Still Insane and Jawdropped together around those very different versions of uncertainty.
Listen to this week’s Three Track Week: Signals selection
This week's tracks are available in our playlist INDIENOXZINE | Selections, updated weekly on Spotify. Yeah, we know that Spotify isn’t exactly great for independent artists, so you can now listen to our playlists on SoundCloud, too - free to listen, no Premium subscription needed.
Max MacReady - When The Signal Starts To Feel Real
The future in "The Hunt" sounds strangely old. The opening synth pattern is dark and repetitive, the electronic drums hit slightly off-beat and little high synth notes keep appearing above them. Before the vocals arrive, Max MacReady have already built somewhere for the song to exist.
It feels futuristic, but not in the clean, digital way we're used to imagining the future now. This one belongs to old computers, analogue machines and science-fiction films that tried to picture a world they hadn't seen yet. Then the verse just slides in. The vocals are dark and treated with effects, but still strong enough to sit clearly inside everything happening around them. In the pre- chorus they move higher, with Auto-Tune used noticeably rather than hidden. I liked that choice. It makes the shift feel slightly unnatural, which somehow suits the world of the song.
And "The Hunt" is really interested in things that aren't quite what they seem. Max MacReady describe the song as a pursuit of something that might never have been there in the first place. A connection, a signal, an invitation. That feels particularly current. So much communication now happens through screens that a few words, a like or a delayed reply can become something we spend far too much time interpreting. Sometimes we're responding to another person. Sometimes we're responding to the story we've built around them. The music plays with that uncertainty too. At one point the drums disappear completely, leaving those high, slightly dystopian synths, bass synth and electric guitar behind. The guitar sounds surprisingly natural against everything electronic. Then the beat returns and so do the darker vocals, this time with a little more force. Later, another guitar pattern appears after the second verse. There's a lot happening, but it never feels messy. The production is clean without polishing away the character. There's another contradiction I like here. Max MacReady build their universe around obsolete technology while making music about problems created by increasingly sophisticated technology. Even the video for "The Hunt" leans into that tension. The duo travelled to real locations including Goonhilly Earthstation and the abandoned air tunnel control room at RAE Bedford, using anamorphic lenses, Steadicam and practical locations to create their imagined future. They deliberately used no generative AI. At a moment when imagining another world can begin with typing a prompt, there's something fitting about two musicians going out and physically looking for theirs.
Maybe that's why Max MacReady's lost future feels so convincing. "The Hunt" isn't really asking us to imagine what's coming next. It's using yesterday's idea of tomorrow to look at something we're already living through.
🎧 Stream “The Hunt” on Apple Music · Follow Max MacReady on Instagram
Still Insane - When You Stop Letting Other People Decide
The guitar riff gets there first. It's hard, really catchy and already backed by the drums when "Do What You Want" starts. There's a few seconds before the vocals come in, but you don't really need them yet. The song already has your attention.
When Eric Dorval's voice arrives, it's strong and right at the front. The guitars, bass and drums keep pushing underneath him and that opening riff keeps returning between the verses. It becomes the hook almost without you noticing. I also liked the little fake-out in the second verse. The guitars disappear and it's just bass and drums for a moment. It sounds like the song might finally give you some room to breathe. It doesn't. The guitars come back and the whole thing is moving again. That feels right for a song about refusing to be steered by someone else. There's no real pause in "Do What You Want", because the music itself doesn't sound interested in asking permission.
That directness fits the song. "Do What You Want" is about what happens when other people start having too much of a say in your life. The band talks about shutting out the voices that try to decide your path for you, even when those voices come from people close to you. That's a familiar problem, but punk has always had a particular way of dealing with it: stop explaining yourself and push back. There's something interesting about hearing that idea from a band that's been making melodic punk in Québec City since 2006. Still Insane aren't presenting rebellion as some dramatic new discovery. After nearly two decades, the band's answer is still pretty simple. Fast guitars. Loud drums. A chorus you can yell along to. Say what you mean and get on with it.
Maybe that's what punk is still good at. Not telling you what to do, but reminding you that the decision is supposed to be yours.
🎧 Stream “Do What You Want” on Apple Music · Follow Still Insane on Facebook
Jawdropped - When The Dream Meets The Real Thing
Los Angeles is very good at selling people a version of itself. You arrive for the music, the films, the parties, the possibility that something might finally happen. Then real life gets in the way. You still have to work, wait, fail, start again. "Cup" is about that moment when the city in your head and the one in front of you stop looking like the same place.
That idea gives the song a little more weight than its bright, jangly surface might suggest. It moves quickly, but never feels rushed. The guitars sound wide and alive, the vocals come in naturally, and the chorus has exactly the kind of melody that makes you want to sing along. I especially liked how the arrangement keeps moving without making a big show of it. The main guitar riff runs through the song, the second verse adds something to the first, and then the bridge drops down to bass and drums before a great guitar solo brings the guitars back in for the final chorus. What makes the story behind "Cup" more interesting is that Jawdropped aren't pretending they're observers looking in from the outside. They're part of that same Los Angeles dream. The band talks about the people they meet across the spectrum of success and failure, but also admits that they're playing the same game themselves. That's a very different way of talking about ambition. The failed actor working at the bar isn't simply someone else's cautionary tale. He could be any artist who moved to LA believing that the next opportunity was just around the corner.
Maybe that's what makes "Cup" feel so recognizable. The dream doesn't have to disappear completely. It just has to make room for the life that actually happened.
🎧 Stream “Cup” on Apple Music · Follow Jawdropped on Instagram
Some songs leave you with an answer. These three mostly leave you with another question. Max Macready makes you wonder whether the signal you're following is even real. Still Insane turn independence into something you can hear in the way the song hits. Jawdropped look at what happens when the dream you've been chasing finally meets the place you've actually arrived in. Different sounds, different problems, but there's a common thread here: sometimes the interesting part isn't knowing what comes next. It's what happens when things don't turn out quite the way you expected.
Further perspectives are available in our Artist Features, Cultural Essays and On This Track, each situating music within broader cultural and structural contexts.
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