Seán Barna is an enigmatic everyman. For all the various idiosyncratic struggles he processes on new single “Eastern Junk Dancing,” the experiences of “scraping together whatever money you can to galavant up and down the last coast in a tour van,” the mental gymnastics of re-interpreting the steely resolve of Margaret Thatcher as a way to merely exist as a queer person, they’re delightfully idiosyncratic, yet immediately resonate with anyone who’s had to hustle for the dream or persevere despite feelings of inadqueacy or non-normalcy. These quotidian trials as narrative, which Barna chronicles in melancholy-yet-hopeful voice, one that evokes equal parts Destroyer and David Bowie, against a glammy, acoustic vamp, makes for a joyful bop; it’s a celebration of the radical act of staying alive, which after all, is something worth commemorating, if even for a few fleeting hours on Houston Street. Listen to it below if you’re feeling doubtful of your own starpower to remind yourself that, despite it all, you’re still here. —Connor Beckett McInerney
