Life is loud. Life is big. Life is frantic.
There’s a lot going on and sometimes all you want to do is sit back, soak in some beautiful music while still engaging your mind and let the reverie flow.
These five thoughtfully talented artist deliver up transportive music, rich in lyrical insight and melodies so lush they are their own piece of paradise, that sets you up for some escapist switching off from the world around you, all of them dedicated to crafting songs that think as much as they feel.
It’s the perfect combination and just what you need right now I’d wager if you’re a member of the 21st century rat race on speed …
“Head Rush” by Benji Lewis
Hailing from Melbourne, Australia, Benji Lewis is a singer-songwriter with an emotionally evocative voice, a gift for affectingly beautiful melodies and incisively thoughtful lyrics who has a real love for acoustic music which finds its way into stunningly lovely songs like “Head Rush”.
A slice of deliciously gentle but emotionally honest lo-fi pop, “Head Rush” is all about love, romance, big dreams and the sobering hand of reality as the singer explains on Acid Stag.
“This song tells the beginning of a relationship and all the many feelings that come with it. It starts off quite innocently with a story of two people falling in love, but then it starts to delve deeper into the thoughts, feelings and struggles of being in love with someone who’s way of life & love is so different to your own. It’s a major head fuck, but ‘Head Rush’ seemed more appropriate for a song title haha.”
Listening to the song you get a real sense of the highs and lows that come with new love and its transition into something more mature, and some of the freedom of expression that comes in this very honest song no doubt comes from the way the song was produced during a pandemic and both the isolation and hopefulness it brought artists like Lewis.
“After being in lockdown for so long it was so refreshing to finally travel and get in a studio again. I travelled to Brisbane to work with Tom Eggert (who co-wrote and produced the ep) who had a really comfortable studio space where I could begin processing and expressing some of the feelings, thoughts and emotions that I was experiencing when writing these songs. It was very therapeutic and greatly needed.” (Acid Stag)
“Only In Your Eyes” by Meltt
Released in the far heady days of February 2022 – kididng; that was practically last weel, it just feels like years ago for which I blame the pandemic – “Only In Your Eyes” by Meltt is definitely the fulfilment of the band’s promise that they “sonically paint your soundscape and sweep you into an ethereal dream”.
That’s quite the offer isn’t it but good lord don’t the talented Canadian fourpiece (Chris Smith – lead vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass / Jamie Turner – drums, percussion / James Porter – guitar, bass, keyboards, vocals) who formed in Vancouver BC in 2014 fulfill it, the song all kinds of chilled loveliness that makes use of the also proferred “multi-layered song-writing” and “colourful instrumentation”.
Officially classified as psychedelic rock, “Only In Your Eyes” moves appealingly through dreamily rich melodies, plaintively evocative melodies and romantically-inclined lyrics that are suffused with a touching poetic intent.
This is a guitar-driven track with a strong presence, despite its laidback underpinnings, which proves you can dial down the sonic impact and still deliver an impactful piece of music that leaves its mark.
“When You Feel Like This” (feat. The Jungle Giants) by Hermitude
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Collaborations between music artists are by and large wonderfully exciting things, combining (hopefully) the best of everyone involved to produce something that’s greater than the sum of its promising parts.
That’s very much the case with “When You Feel Like This” by Australian electronic hi-hop duo Hermitude, which features the alluring talents of indie rock band The Jungle Giants (also fellow Aussies) who together have created a lusciously good track, complete with an awesomely good clip by Daniel Merson, which has been described like this by Hermitude themselves who seem to have enjoyed the creation as much as we are enjoying the result.
“‘When You Feel Like This’ is the positive peak of the album, it’s the feel good vibe that we wanted on the record. It was mid pandemic when we were writing and we wanted some positivity to burst through the bleakness of the time. Getting Sam (Jungle Giants frontman) on board was a great experience. He’s one of those people with a really infectious energy and it was super inspiring to be around in the studio. Just good vibes and fun and I think his style was a perfect fit for the positive angle we were looking for with ‘When You Feel Like This’ and the album.” (Acid Stag)
It’s one of those songs that appears to just percolate along but which is actuakly doing some pretty intense musicial business under the figurative water delivering up a listening experience which immersively wraps itself around you and subsumes you in the best and most complete of ways.
“Pleroma” by Jamie Lane
Music artists who can transport you to some place far away from the here and now with a piercingly beautiful melody and creatively rendered vocals that sound both dream-like and darkly evocative are the sort of people you wnat in your corner when you’re looking to park reality somewhere else for a while.
It’s a good thing then that we have Aussie Jamie Lane with us, who in Pleroma the album of which “Pleroma” is the obvious title track, has crafted music which Acid Stag notes is “pushing the boundaries of contemporary electronic music with infusions of synthwave, techno and atmospheric house elements.”
It’s a giddily ethereal instrumental piece which sounds like the perfect distillation of the artist’s quest to to produce something [pure] to be admired and embodied”; the song is an enveloping piece of wonder, a journey to something mystical and wonderful that feels otherworldly and comforting all at once.
Pleroma is out now if you’re ready for what Acid Stag deservedly calls an “intoxicatingly” listening experience.
“Love Letter (feat. The Knocks)” by ODESZA
Two more artists also playing incredibly nicely together in the musical sandpit are American electronic music duos ODESZA and The Knocks who have created an lusciously transportive track in “Love Letter”.
A song five years in the making which has gone through multiple iterations to reach its final infectiously alive final form, “Love Letter” rather definantly declares that “You can’t break my heart … because I was never in love” which feels rather forelorn and lost lyrically but which armed with the luminously dreamy but grittily expressed melody feels like some sort of emotionally impactful out of body experience.
It is a surprising joy of track that ODESZA says actually has some very positive underpinnings.
“Over the past few years we’ve been able to reflect on who we are, what it means to do what we do, and in the end, who we are doing this for. We became focused and inspired by the impact our families and friends have imprinted on us, and how we want to continue to echo that out as we move through this life. We found comfort in the fact that those who we love stay with us, that they become intrinsically part of us, in a way.” (Acid Stag)
A captivatingly special piece of music that speaks of loss but sounds like a danceable pocket of joyous movement, “Love Letter” is a standout track which demands multiple listens if only to soak in all its thoughtfully musical goodness.
SONGS, SONGS AND MORE SONGS EXTRA EXTRA!
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