The song I’m about to draw your attention to has brought me MAJOR joy over the past few days, and I am excited for you to have the same experience. The Soda Island collective recently released a song with Izzard, featuring folksy musician and songwriter, Merival, and in my not-so-humble opinion, it’s a match made in heaven.
From the opening notes, the song is exactly what the collective describe their music as, an oasis. Secret Garden is beautifully immersive, driven by a rich, elastic baseline accompanied by an acoustic guitar melody. Merival’s vocal has a beautiful, swelling momentum to it, and the echoes and vocal layering only add to its magical quality. I can’t put my finger on the little electronic details that complete the masterpiece, but these elements serve to add to the fresh complexity that sets this track apart.
Secret Garden is auditory lemonade on a warm day. It’s a soothing break from the hot mess of the music industry and it most definitely leaves you wanting more. Merival’s vocal weaves in and out of the intricate electronic instrumental unassumingly, rendering me considerably more at peace than before I pushed play. It brings to mind the famous line from Steve Conrad’s, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, “Beautiful things don’t ask for attention.”
On a technical note, Merival’s style on Secret Garden brings to mind Sylvan Esso, Oh Wonder and Banks. Having listened to the artist’s solo work, it is clear that she has adapted her voice to fit right in with the mood of Izzard’s electronic style. This goes to show her versatility as an artist and makes her all the more intriguing. Lyrically, it’s tough to tell exactly what the song is referring to, but the focus seems to be on lulling us into a kind of musical wonderland. And this is incredibly effective, because the lyrics are usually a key part of what draws me into a song. The sound that Izzard and Merival have created seems to make sense of the melancholy as well as the joyful elements of life, creating a song that is soothing in its complexity.
“Take it back is all we ever do / All I want is something out of you” I’ve mentioned before that it’s often the universal quality of lyrics that draws us in. Merival approaches the song with a vocal style that is somehow simultaneously delicate and strong. Perhaps in itself leading us to consider our own position in the world. Simply put, this song is a masterpiece, and I notice something new on every listen, which if you’ve read my previous articles, is something I look for in music. It is perhaps the intrepid quality of the song that makes it so soothing to listen to, I find myself exploring the nooks and crannies of an electronic and vocal soundscape instead of thinking about my problems. If art’s main role is to make life worth living, its secondary role is to make us feel something, and I am quite amazed by the feelings that Secret Garden wakes up in me.
