Heartfelt guitar music this week. A Lancaster home studio home-recording, an Ohio six-piece with one of the richest singles we have heard all year, and a genuinely heartwarming comeback story to round things out neatly.
Sungaze – I’m No Longer Afraid of Heights
Sungaze’s I’m No Longer Afraid of Heights is midwest emo at its most wonderfully poetic, childhood nostalgia and adult stagnation colliding in one gorgeous slow-burner.
This is the kind of track that makes you stop what you are doing. Cincinnati six-piece Sungaze open with slide guitar drifting over a steady rhythm, long summer days and childhood possibility, before the track quietly pivots into something more complicated in the second half. I’m No Longer Afraid of Heights is about what happens when that golden childhood feeling curdles into adult stagnation, and the moment you finally decide to do something about it.
Sungaze blend shoegaze atmosphere with the nostalgic pull of midwest emo. Songwriters Ivory Snow and Ian Hilvert lead a six-piece that includes Snow’s sister on bass and a drummer who had to perform the song at double speed on the night of filming, for slow-motion purposes, and by all accounts a hilarious experience. The music video was shot across three days in Ohio, including the actual corner store from the first verse, and the album drops May 22. This is just brilliant.
Patti Zlaket – Love Is For You
Patti Zlaket’s Love Is For You is a warm, soulful comeback single that sounds like she has been saving it up for exactly this moment, deeply felt.
Patti Zlaket’s comeback story is one for the ages. After watching a documentary about legendary session musicians called The Section, she reached out to bassist Lee Sklar, of Phil Collins, James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt fame, completely out of the blue. He replied. That chance exchange set off a year-long recording process that has given us the album Dance Again, and Love Is For You is its final preview single before release.
Produced by Tariqh Akoni, whose credits include Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Lopez and Weezer, and featuring Sklar himself on bass, this is a wonderful and meticulously crafted piece of adult pop that rewards every listen. The song started life as a track about unrequited love, but Zlaket says it changed meaning entirely when she found her partner. Love is always there for us, waiting to welcome us in, and when she sings it, you believe every word on first hearing, and the second listen seals it. It’s genuinely great.