LETTIE AND DAVID BARON
Endless Climb
London, United Kingdom
‘Endless Climb’ is a collaborative album from two great minds, influenced by pop, cinematic scores and unusual instruments. These two great minds consist of Lettie and David Baron. They together have curated a sound that is unique to their pairing. It shimmers in the moonlight through synthetic rain and dances on wheat-barley in colourful fields of summertime. It is vast in its diversity, hitting many intricate stylings over the course of the entire album, sometimes within one singular song. The album sits in the pop/synth wave genre but dips out from time to time to experiment with sounds and arrangements that defy the norm. This outburst of creativity is clear as day on the album as two instrumental tracks make their home here. They work to solidify ‘Endless Climb’’s identity as an album that embodies two swirling passions, hell-bent on delivering some kick-ass music.
The album begins on a high and slopes downward, not in passion but in pace and punch. Like a good book, it grabs you with the first line. ‘Escape’ is punchy and full of drums and winding synth pads. The vocals are breathy yet full, they harmonise with the missing notes in a jazzy manner and ring home a melody that fits the tone. It's subdued, but in a pleasant way, it makes you feel like something is coming, the vox and instrumental alike are conserving energy. The sound expands when the chorus hits, the vocals climb higher, instruments drop in and out, a guitar plucks an oscillating melody in the back as the hook hits home. It's a great contrast to the following track, ‘Fairy Tale’ which focuses more on the organic. Piano starts us off and the vocals feel closer to us in the ether. They layer with harmonies as the piano rolls through a storytelling melody that leads to some heady and poetic lyrics that I adore. The melody arrives just when it needs to and the song builds with layered harmonies and vocals, humming from either side of the space.
‘Memory’ holds an eerie quality that wraps you up in a copper wire blanket, looking over a tv-static sunset. It's homely but otherworldly. The synth is glitchy and it works to open up the song, it walks a line between organic and synthetic, slow and steady, too regular, yet irregular in its patterns. A true contrast and juxtaposition of sound. It leads us into the first instrumental track and title track, ‘Endless Climb’. It's wavy, it's tense, it's relieving and it's deep. It feels like a novella in a song. The melodies act as players on a stage, they go about their business as we listen in and it's fascinating music. Lettie and David Baron did not lose that melodic touch however, the song still catches that musical string within us and plays chords that swell and pull at our emotions.
‘Shoot The Breeze’ pulls us back to the starting sounds of the album, a little more open. It's poppy but deeper. It shifts between phases with ease and experiments with awesome textures and tones as the song plays out. ‘Waiting’ starts with a hypnotic guitar and vocal duet. It builds in a late Beatles fashion, a dazzling track that adds so much character to the album as a whole. Strange instruments, monotone layers that build an ever more complex structure as you go.
The album is closing. ‘The Kite’ soars with instrumental and vocal harmonies that break away from one another, only to clash in the middle, twist, and fly off on new and interesting tangents full of wonder and light. ‘Maysong’ clicks and sighs, its instrumental patterns calling for accompaniment that enters in the form of oohs and aahs. They make the track feel human, closer. It's wonderful in its brevity, however, I could listen to it sing for hours. ‘Bright Lights’ closes and I’d say it's the simplest song on ‘Endless Climb’. A chance for Lettie and David Baron to show us they needn’t hide behind these time-spanning instrumentals
and exciting ideas. They can create music as pure as any other. They just do it in a more exciting way. I loved every moment of ‘Endless Climb’, a perilous journey into your own centre and back again.
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