I moved into my current Manhattan apartment building eight months ago and I can hear everything. Mr. ‘dreamy eyes with ripped abs and a very visible bulge in his grey sweatpants’ lives upstairs and leaves for the gym at 5:45am every morning. The couple next door has the same fight about dishes on repeat. I know the intimate details of strangers’ lives through these thin walls and I’m not pick a single one of them out of a lineup if my life depended on it. We all perform our little routines in our separate boxes pretending this proximity means something and that the structure of it all is real. Wake up, work, sleep, repeat. We’ve all agreed to participate in this carefully constructed illusion that modern life has meaning and purpose and connection. The worst part? The performance feels so damn convincing that you don’t even realize how fucking hollow and alone you are until you’re standing in the shower at 2am and the whole facade finally cracks. Montauk Hotel’s ‘Never Quiet’ understands that moment perfectly. It’s urban alienation set to the soundtrack of a world that won’t shut the fuck up long enough for you to figure out what’s real anymore.
The song opens with “Shower of emptiness / Soaked in realisation / Glare of normalcy / A blinding distraction” and listen, that destroyed me. When you’re standing under hot water at some ungodly hour and the performance finally stops that’s when you feel it. The emptiness. You’re finally admitting what you’ve been avoiding – that all of this is fake. The mundane routines and the Instagram stories making your life look full. And that bright facade of everyday life we use to hide behind? We perform “fine” and “connected” so convincingly that we can’t even see how hollow it all is anymore. And the production mirrors it perfectly – atmospheric and moody dream pop with layered synths that feel simultaneously comforting and unsettling. We’ve gotten so used to the artifice that it actually feels safe which is deeply fucked up when you think about it.
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So quick context – Montauk Hotel is an all-female indie-pop band from Dublin. Claudia Verdecchia handles vocals with Shell Dooley on guitars, Aoife Hester on bass, and Karima Dillon-El Toukhy on drums. They formed in 2016 and have been making waves in Dublin’s live music scene with sold-out shows at Whelans and festival slots at Electric Picnic. Their sound pulls from early 80s indie-pop but they’ve made it their own with shimmering guitars and punchy beats. They dropped their self-titled EP in 2017 then released singles like ‘Sense of Place’ and ‘Hands’ that got Hot Press and The Irish Times talking. ‘Never Quiet’ continues that trajectory of making music that sounds beautiful while gutting you emotionally. You know, the best kind.
The chorus hits with “Super-imposed sky / Eerily comforting / The city silence is never quiet” and fuck, this is the entire concept in three lines. Even nature feels fake in the city like someone pasted a backdrop over reality. Everything is a layer, a construct, built on top of nothing. And we find that constructed reality comforting because we’ve been performing for so long that the fake stuff feels safer than anything real would. Your brain is still running scripts, still performing productivity and purpose and connection even when you’re alone in the dark. Claudia’s vocals float over the production with this detached quality, like she’s watching her own life from outside. She sounds like someone who’s recognized they’re playing a role but feels powerless to stop, which honestly hits too close.
Okay but the second verse gets even more specific. “Napkins of helplessness / Displays of digression / Civilised world is just an illusion / Metallic echoes in the age of connection.” This is such a weird ass image and it works perfectly. These flimsy, disposable attempts at managing the performance when it starts to crack. All our distractions and busy-work are just displays. We’re performing busyness to avoid admitting none of it matters. Then they just straight-up say it everything we’ve been taught is real and permanent is actually a collective delusion we’re all maintaining together. The jobs, the social contracts, all of it. We’ve agreed to participate because the alternative is confronting the void. And here’s what really gets me – we’re supposedly more connected than ever but all our interactions just bounce off the surface. Cold and hollow. We’re performing connection without actually connecting. Every “how are you” met with “good, you?” Every shallow interaction that maintains the script. Nothing penetrates. If this makes you uncomfortable then you’re paying attention.
Real talk, the production throughout keeps this dreamy, floating quality. The guitars shimmer and glisten, the beat stays punchy but never aggressive, the synths create layers of sound that wash over you. Everything about this track feels constructed, carefully built, layered over itself. The sound is beautiful the same way city lights reflecting off glass buildings are beautiful. Gorgeous, but artificial. You’re not hearing raw instruments, you’re hearing the performance of instruments. The carefully constructed sonic landscape that sounds organic but isn’t. I’ve been playing this at the gym and also during my 3am spirals. Versatile.
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Here’s where it gets heavier. The bridge brings back “The city silence is never quiet / Blocks of words / Hitting against the walls / High-pitched ripples / Never Quiet.” All our performed communication just crashes into barriers and falls flat. Our carefully constructed conversations and text messages. We’re all performing communication without actually saying anything real. And that constant frequency of panic humming underneath everything? You can hear it if you stop performing for even a second. There’s no escape from the noise because the noise is the performance itself and the performance never stops. Even silence is just another layer. Pretty bleak shit when you say it out loud, right?
And here’s what gets me most about this track it doesn’t offer you an exit. They name what we’re all doing and offer no prescriptions or solutions. The acknowledgment arrives this is the constructed reality we’ve all agreed to participate in and most of us will keep performing because the alternative is too terrifying to face. This truth is pure recognition, and damn, that recognition stings.
I saw my upstairs neighbor in the lobby yesterday. Mr. dreamy eyes himself. We made eye contact, I glanced down at his bulge and hoped I didn’t lick my lips, both opened our mouths to say something, then just nodded and looked away. We could’ve said hi. We could’ve introduced ourselves. Hell, I could have even said ‘nice package!’ We didn’t. Montauk Hotel’s ‘Never Quiet’ gets that moment perfectly. We all keep performing the polite distance in our separate boxes because actually connecting is too fucking uncomfortable.
