Kyle Hoffman is someone I met on a recent trip to San Diego. I immediately recognized his love for music (not that he was trying to hide it) and during my short stay was exposed to a number of bands and genres I didn’t know existed… it was great. So when I started thinking up ways to expand the type of music we were covering on Static + Distance my mind immediately went to Kyle. I gave him carte blanche to write about whatever he chose, be it an album review of some obscure gem, an essay on 60s amps or a track write-up. He sent me the following a couple of days ago and I knew I made the right choice in asking him to help out. My hope is that he will become a regular contributor, so keep an eye out for future write-ups/columns from Hoffman. In the meantime, you can read his write-up on The Zombies’ “Leave Me Be” below.

I wanted to write something in tribute to one of the great underrated avant-guardians of sixties pop. The Zombies’ “Leave Me Be” easily expands on the breathy sultriness that any of their hit singles (Time Of The Season, Summertime, She’s Not There) display. It punches out at 2:08, leaving you barely satiated and merely hinting at some sort of resolution through Paul Atkinson’s desperate 12-string guitar lead. This song is demonstrative of The Zombies’ astuteness at impacting both intellectual and primal thought processes. It is introspective and descriptive, yet fleeting and negligent of the listener’s primitive desire for any kind of concrete resolution. Fixation ensues. One is either stuck on replay to explore and parallel their own similar experience(s), or is enticed to explore the theme of resolution in other unfamiliar, weathered testaments of The Zombies’ catalogue. Similar themes? George Harrison’s “Don’t Bother Me. Thanks for listening.