Synth Single Review: “Radio” by FM-84 & Josh Dally
by Karl Magi
FM-84 & Josh Dally’s “Radio” travels through alienation and hope, growing to life as a hollow hovering becomes splashes of honey-coloured light defined by a steady throb. Weaving an enchanting web, FM-84’s composition uplifts Josh Dally’s dream-inspiring vocals as dense patterns glide below. Rippling radiance cascades in contrast with Josh Dally’s distinctively earnest performance, catching me up in the world he breathes into life.
Melody slips with thoughtful clarity, a reflecting pool of intense emotion, while rhythm steadily shapes the sound. A broken trembling fills the vocal performance while FM-84 paints on his sonic canvas with subtlety and graceful motion. Climbing to float above density, Josh Dally takes the lyrics and imbues them with touching immediacy.
All of the sweeping space opens around the sweetly affecting vocals while pearlescent lustre infuses auroral synth patterns. Like tiny gems in a dark firmament, synth sparks dance while the vocals vibrate with soul-deep feeling before the song closes.
Trapped in a city from which he can’t escape, our main character is “caught in the same situation again.” The narrator describes him “spinning around to the same old sound,” and as he hears his name called, he doesn’t feel the same. He asks, “Hey, can we radio right now?” Urging the song’s subject to walk away, the narrator tells him not to stay because “we’re playing the game without taking the blame.”
He adds, “You can let them say silence isn’t the way,” but both of them know, so “don’t let it show.” Our storyteller says, “Hey, I know it’s crazy, but I swear I ain’t going nowhere else tonight,” so he asks the song’s subject to look him in the eye and “radio outta here.” He asks the other person to imagine “there’s a dial in life that you’ve never known.”
According to the narrator, this dial allows you to travel to “places you’d never know right now.” The song’s subject tells him that it wasn’t them or what they were dreaming of. He concludes, “We always said we’d know, change the station and let go.”
