I came across Geowulf completely by accident. I think I was playing the Spotify “undercurrents” playlist (which is a really nice playlist I recommend to any of you peoples who want to vibe to some really bomb indie tracks).
I was casually shuffling through this playlist, allowing it to transcend into background muzak while I was working on some mundane task. But suddenly, I froze and stopped what I was doing completely and my only purpose at that moment was to find the name of that song I was listening to. Something about that track stopped me in my…tracks (hahaha I’m truly sorry this might be too bad to even be considered a bad pun). But that was the very first song I heard from Geowulf, and it was their vintage-chill-beach-esque sounding song “Saltwater”. I was hooked and I needed to consume their entire discography ASAP. I was perusing through their Spotify page and I found their new track “Won’t Look Back”.
Geowulf is a London based duo consisting of Star Kendrick and Toma Banjanin, and so far they have three singles out which have done pretty well, with the first of them, “Saltwater”, racking up a cool couple milli on Spotify.
On “Won’t Look Back”, Geowulf are creating a hypnotic musical landscape for us, consisting of beach-esque waves, lazily rising and falling.
“Won’t Look Back: starts out sounding like the lush musical interlude you could find on a indie record. It sounds lush and green and fresh, like delving into a forest. It’s a whirlwind of guitar and intricate synths and drums that carry you up, up, up, floating away. It’s ethereal and transcendent. There’s a lot going on, and there is no momentary pause of silence, and it just really, really works. Geowulf manage to give you a lot of music, without it being a sonic overload. Instead, it just adds to the dreamy, unearthly quality of the whole track. There’s almost a faded vintage aspect to the whole track, like an old photograph, something reminiscent about it of 80’s synth pop.
Geowulf are creating a hypnotic musical landscape for us, consisting of beach-esque waves, lazily rising and falling. The music swells and recedes much like the waves of the ocean, and we can imagine ourselves slowly spinning, arms outstretched to the world around you. There’s something Daughter-y (with a bit of Zella Day thrown in) about this track, with the bittersweet nostalgia behind the words and music. This track perfectly encapsulates the feeling that you get while looking at old pictures: kind of sad, kind of happy, an indescribable combination of the two.
“Magical” and “mesmerizing” are some words that come to mind while listening to this song. It’s refreshingly larger than life, enveloping you and surrounding you in its shimmery sound. Yet, it is breathtakingly close and intimate, and you feel as though she is whispering softly and directly into your ear.
Honestly I just really love Geowulf, I didn’t expect to come across them and love everything about their faded lo-fi sound. It’s refreshingly distinctive in a world full of surgically clean cut music. They effortlessly blend a vintage sound with a masterful use of synths, along with excellent and absolutely dreamy vocals that just really seem to fit in with the music seamlessly. As a new fan, please release more music soon, and please (please) come to California soon, you’ll fit right in.
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