Synth Single Review: “Skeletal” by Jana Tyrrell

by Karl Magi

Jana Tyrrell’s “Skeletal” radiates powerful need and vulnerability. The song starts as a roaming melody floats with disconnected tones while computerized notes shift. A massively looming rhythm moves with Jana Tyrrell’s whispering voice, which slowly gains strength as the background reaches with darkly intertwining tendrils.

Jana Tyrrell releases her voice with dreamy shadow as the gigantic beat collides with sharp-edged tones. A guitar trembles with spectral energy as the towering foundation adds even more darkness. As Jana Tyrrell calls out, I am galvanized by the way power rips forth from her voice while the beat shatters.

Bass undulates and Jana Tyrrell’s vocals glide above the threatening power below, as the guitar slashes with elevated strength. The vocals are cut by a minor-key guitar solo that blazes with intense emotion as the hammering beat goes on. A skittering rhythm moves beneath the haunting vocal performance as a synth trickles through the music with contrasting peace. The guitar has a ghostly sensation and a choral sound floats above tremulous notes as silence falls.

Our narrator opens the song saying, “Feed me, until I choke, I’m ready to receive your wisdom.” She wants the song’s subject to strip her down to her bones and “take me, in pieces, wherever you wanna go.” She asks to be given a sign as the other person comes up “through the waves” to show their light to her alone. “She’s running out of time,” so come to me now when the sky’s like fire, as she asks the song’s subject if they’re calling for her.

“Up in the stars there is a paradise where the mind roams free,” and that’s where the storyteller wants to be. She’ll “walk over stones until my soles bleed,” as she promises, “I’m the best of them so please pick me!” To conclude, she says she followed their breadcrumb trail and “deciphered all your codes, purified every part of my soul.”

Synth Single Review: “Galaxy’’ by LukHash

by Karl Magi

LukHash’s “Galaxy” is a paean to our beautiful universe. The track begins with tranquil bells ringing with stellar light above a swirling background, slowly spinning like the arms of a spiral galaxy. A resonant synth vibrates with cosmic peace, carrying a melody full of distant pain before the sharply broken beat drives forward resolutely.

Brilliant tones carry the melody as they shimmer like structures in space, effulgent and unknowable, filling me with contemplation. The beat becomes muffled as the main melody slips past, conveying imagery of planetary landscapes unfolding as a traveling starship floats on. Piano rises with emotive weight as the quickly leaping drum-and-bass rhythm joins the lead melody which glides past like a spaceship hanging in anti-gravity.

Warmer tones enter the music and sparkle like a thousand pinpoints of starry light in a black-velvet sky before the music exhales with deeply soothing sensations and the piano closes the track.

Synth Single Review: “Night Terrors” by Autumn White

Review by Karl Magi

Autumn White’s “Night Terrors” is a plea for peace and an end to the narrator’s broken nights. The song begins as a synth drifts with Autumn White’s vulnerable voice, moving with reverberant emotion. The rough synth slices while a slowly trickling note pattern moves in the distance.

The kick drum throbs in a bursting rhythm as Autumn White shows off his full range above the darkly guiding bass. The echoing vocal production adds to the heartbreaking feelings in the lyrics. Lacerating notes cut like the lyric’s pain while Autumn White presses them home with his broken, beautiful voice.

Xylophone adds a fragile trickle as the thumping rhythm drives and the vocals burn fervently. A delicate tone pattern ripples as the cleanly cutting synth descends and the rhythm guides before the chorus climbs again, tearing free from the lead singer with every ounce of his heart on display. The words trace a spectral filigree as the ticking percussion moves. Tiny notes ripple into silence.

“Would you wait for me, would you hold my hand?” is what the narrator asks the song’s subject. He asks, “As I head into the light, would you kiss me without a sound?” He admits to being confused and lost, questioning if he can ever be found. He says, “As I head into the light, I need an angel now.”

As our storyteller walked through the dark, all he could see was the song subject’s silver halo. He describes her as “like a girl from a magazine, with a gun in your hand and a bullet with my name written on the side.” He can see his pain “like a mirror reflected in your eyes.”

“In between every breath I take, I'm alone in a crowded place,” and with every word he speaks, the narrator remains alone. He points out that his mind is the enemy when he can't sleep and can barely breathe, adding, “These night terrors are killing me.”

While the clock’s second hand “cuts through my life like a blade,” the narrator is fighting that clock “like a ghost in the electric haze.” He runs until his lungs give out and screams until he’s got nothing left. He concludes, “Bury me deep, in the place that I sleep.”

Synth Single Review: “Ascension” by Aisle 9

Review by Karl Magi

Aisle 9’s “Ascension” paints images of effortless flight and aeronautic freedom. The track starts as a distantly vibrating synth wanders through a static crackle. Rushing, spinning sound is joined by a synth that dances with hollow dynamism above the gargantuan underlayer as keys glimmer with ethereal grace, skimming past like elegant silver airships in flight.

The bass rhythm pushes on as the saxophone captures chilled-out emotion, like a craft hovering above the horizon of the futuristic city below. The rhythmic heartbeat is colossal as the effulgent piano tones levitate with weightless precision above the explosive beat.

Cloudy sounds blow above a watery rush as the guitar takes hold of the melody, the artist effortlessly conveying arcing flight and a smooth passage above the bounds of the earth. Echoing tones are joined by the leaping saxophone as it paints pictures of free flight across a landscape of sky and misty veils of cloud.