Covid-19 – keep reading, this isn’t about the pandemic – threw a disproportionate number of emotional breakdowns at most of us.
Fear not, though, for if you’re still revering from the effects of the last two years, we have the perfect soundtrack to your weepy nights and self-pitiful overeating antics. (Unless you unleashed your inner Olympian-come-healthy-vegan-influencer in lockdown, in which case you’re dramatically missing out on both the food and this EP).
Enter Soham De. The emerging singer-songwriter, armed with an intimacy and a genuine reflection of life at the heart of his work, released his latest body of work on May 20th and it’s everything we needed and more. Titled About Happier Things, Soham’s characteristic wandering acoustic guitar accompaniments take a back seat on this release. Or rather, they don’t take a seat at all. Recorded live, and with each song entirely piano-led, the EP acts as a kind of ode to the instrument.
Annoyingly, Soham, who unassumingly claims to feel like a ‘fraud’ on the keys, proves to be nothing of the sort.
Paired with an organic and stripped-back production quality, the use of piano adds depth to a tenderness that’s already well-established within Soham’s work. Whether the necessary paring down to simplistic piano and voice is born of limited current recording opportunities due to tHeSe uNpReCeDeNtEd TiMeS, or a deliberate creative choice, each song retains a comforting level of relevance to the weird and generally-not-that-wonderful present times (amidst which the new EP does in fact offer a slice of wonderful).
The EP’s true jewel lies in its piano instrumental namesake, ‘About Happier Things’. Though the heart of Soham’s music generally lies in introspective lyrics and poignant, slightly rough-around-the-edges vocals, this song is proof that he remains conscious of moments that require holding back. Positioned in all its glory as the EP’s central piece, it grants three and a half heavenly minutes of serenity to its listener. Nostalgic in nature, the track genuinely gives the impression that its writer has sat down and absent-mindedly poured every ounce of feeling into the piano.
Soham’s artistic meander towards piano enables a deeper exploration of harmony and, in turn, allows him to explore another dimension of musical creativity.
Randy Newman-esque moments are created in the EP’s closing offering, ‘Changing’, through the dreamy combo of subtly jazzy, slightly curious harmonic moments and the total simplicity of the vocal melody. It’s the kind of song you might expect from that familiar rom-com montage of the heartbroken couple before an inevitable happy ending (but we should be clear: one of the good, even intellectually stimulating, rom-coms). It also retains the magic consistently found in the ability of Soham’s music to remain personal to him in its very creation, yet personal to its listener to the same extent. In the same way, the tracks ‘Leave a Light On’ and ‘MM DD’ merely nuance ideas and thoughts, truly allowing space for them to allude alternate meanings.
Though featuring a moment or two in which the distinguishing simplicity of the EP leaves the listener wanting elaboration, the motives are clear. More strikingly, the music – stripped-back, self-written, and self-recorded – is a precise reflection of the situation in which it was written. It strongly resonates with the Covid-19-created strange simplicity of everyday life (last mention, promise), peeled back to its bare necessities.
Talent and candour. That’s never a bad combination, is it?