There is something frantically urgent about the way Michellar delivers “LOVE PEACE WAR- acoustic remix”. After a staggering forty-year silence, a gap wide enough to fit entire lifetimes into this San Francisco songwriter broke the seal in 2023 and hasn’t stopped since. This track, inspired by the invasion of Ukraine, captures that specific, dusty nostalgia of Haight-Ashbury, seemingly channelling the ghosts of 1960s protest circles directly into our current, messy reality.
The production is jarringly honest. It relies on a rhythmic, heavy-handed acoustic strum that refuses to sit in the background. Michellar’s vocals aren’t aiming for studio perfection; they alternate between a storytelling cadence and higher, emotive refrains that feel like they’re being sung directly at you from across a kitchen table.
She speaks of children caught in the crossfire and the tug-of-war between greed and compassion, positing hope as the “keel” keeping us upright.
It is raw, lo-fi, and utterly devoid of cynicism. The vocal harmonies arrive late, adding a texture that feels communal rather than calculated. In a digital age where everything is smoothed over, isn’t there something strangely comforting about hearing a song that wears its imperfections like armor?
