‘Won’t Settle’ (feat. Murt) – Single by Emsmia

The track has a really unusual and distant sort of sound and vibe to it. Right from the start, the ambiance set has something dark and quite haunting about it, the lyrical mention of a fish bowl adds more fuel to this fire and in fact underlines the fact that the whole song sounds a little bit like it’s been recorded in a similar sort of chamber. The consistent and intense reverb throughout keeps the track at a certain distance from the listener, so it’s not a personal piece of music, not instantly something to relate to, but it is, without a doubt, a track that stands our and grabs attention almost immediately.

The vibe remains fairly mellow throughout, musically, and in terms of the vocal performances and the level of passion, however the track is far from mellow in its overall output – this darkness is inherent in the sound, and it brings with it a fairly intense array of feelings. The instrumentation is fairly minimal, though each part chosen is crucial to the overall soundscape – the music has been thoughtfully composed to give off a certain energy, and the vocal performances match this energy throughout, so it all works well as a unit. Once you get past the initial and undoubtedly original sound of the music, the lyrics do offer a fair amount that listeners can relate to.

It would be interesting to see if the heavy reverb is a stylistic choice throughout the artist’s music, or if it was simply chosen for this particular piece of art as a means of further emphasising the feeling behind the songwriting. The riffs and the beat are easy going and the lyrics have a certain sense of character that is likely to appeal more and more as additional tracks surface.

By Rebecca Cullen

Rebecca is a Musician and writer from Manchester, UK, with an MA in Song Writing