Swanning towards the sunset like some forlorn farewell to these summer months, Berlin-via-Australia singer/songwriter J Mahon (FKA Emerson Snowe) soars and scintillates on balladic new single ‘Charly (Romantic Heart)’. It’s the final teaser of his debut album ‘Everything Has A Life’, due on 8th September via Taxi Gauche Records.
Written, incidentally, during a period spent sanding wood for 6-8 hours a day underneath an upcycle workshop while listening to Paul McCartney and Pavement, ‘Charly’, at its (romantic) heart, is simply a song for a friend. Duly expressed with all that earnest, advisory and empathetic love given from one true friend to another during a moment of emotional strife, yet at the same time, imbued with Mahon’s own self-reflections – (“no use waiting for something that won’t be”, feels directed at the singer himself too) – ‘Charly’ does all it can to prick you into feeling, in anyway it can.
Musically the track bathes itself in fragrant bubbles of the richest intimations – every piano line is tear-stricken, every violin sweep scratches the soul, each chorus of Mahon’s cracked vocal eeks out every last drop of wholesome sincerity. In fact, so yearning, pining, and melancholic is every last breath and bar of ‘Charly’ that the track might spill over into a joyous elation, should you be in the right, squishy kind of mindset as you approach it.
Featuring members of The Umlauts and Ulrika Spacek in it’s (depending on your perspective, I guess) star-studded ensemble, ‘Charly’ only makes the advent of Mahon’s debut album next week all the more tantalising.
Photo by Miriam Marlene
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