100 Greatest Songs of the 20’s So Far #87 Men I Trust – Ring of Past

Released: 2023

It helps sometimes to avoid the category; from Quebec, Men I Trust have spent more than a decade writing and self releasing their music, putting out four records, the last of which was 2021’s wryly titled The Untourable Album. A glance at Wikipedia throws out tags like electropop and indie, but the one that best fits is the even more nebulous dream pop.

Nobody wants to waste any time writing down a definition of that, so it’s best instead to jump straight to Ring of Past, a song which even if it doesn’t define them is one for stans of crossing the genre streams. Mixing sexless funk and disco, elfin singer Emma Proulx’s words are lowish down in a Moog heavy mix, but the track has a sweetness which avoids ick despite the subject matter being eternal love.

It helps to avoid easy categorisation. Easier then to say Ring of Past is one of the best indie dream pop disco tunes of recent years.