Foto-© Gaelle Leroyer
Neue Woche, neue Musik, neue Energie! Zumindest wollen wir euch mit Edwin Raphael einen Songwriter heute genauer vorstellen, der in Kanada schon für Aufsehen gesorgt hat und zuletzt mit seiner neuen EP Staring at the Ceilings eine weitere Standortbestimmung seines Schaffens veröffentlicht hat. 2018 spielte der in Montreal lebende und aus Dubai stammende Musiker seine ersten Shows und wagte auch für einige Support-Shows (u.a. für Hollow Coves oder Noah Kahan) den Sprung nach England. Ein Jahr später veröffentlichte er sein Debütalbum Will You Think Of Me Later?, das bis zum heutigen Tag über 4 Millionen Streams verzeichnete und Edwin als jemanden zeigt, der seine Fähigkeiten als Songwriter voll ausspielt und auf den man in Zukunft aufpassen sollte. Seine neue, von Marcus Paquin (Arcade Fire, The National, Local Natives, Stars) produzierte EP ist nun eine 20-minütige Reise durch seine Gefühlswelt und steht für ein Spektrum der menschlichen Nachgiebigkeit und den Preis unserer Ängste. Zur Single Time To Sink daraus hat uns Edwin einen tiefen Einblick in die Geschichte dahinter gewährt – in unserer about the song-Reihe!
Where do I begin? To talk about this particular song is difficult, not because it scared the shit out of me, not because there were moments that felt black but because it is so so desperately honest. For the longest time, I had the hardest time talking to people about this sensation of feeling numb. At times I’d think it was nice to not feel anything, to not feel sadness but that’s not quite right is it? There needs to be a balance, for you cannot have happiness without the experience of the other. What I did feel however was this almost deafening noise that swarms my head like bees buzzing about. Music helped with that. When people ask me why I started writing music, it’s difficult to explain the notion of bees but that is the gist of it, I suppose.
Time to Sink takes place in that moment where I do not run from this swarm but instead I let it swallow me. It comes from a place of hopelessness and bitterness at oneself. There’s a moment of sadness where you accept that you’re ready to be swallowed by it. However I think the song also reflects an openness to see it for what it is. There’s a famous quote that goes something like “the sea speaks more honestly to those that are willing to drown in it”, so I comply whole heartedly with this song.
I wanted to know where it’ll take me & this is what I found.
It’s a void you’ve been avoiding, it’s an answer you always knew but scared of. It’s a tipping point of finally looking under the veil that’s most obvious. I realized I was looking at myself, I realized anxiety is a vicious cycle, that the noise is necessary for the calm.
In many ways I’m glad I wrote this song, I signify it as a moment in time that’s very important to me. I think there’s a lovely & beautiful weightlessness to that last second you feel before hitting the water in a dive, the song is designed to encapsulate that split second. The EP further explores what’s underwater, the troubles of coming back up & the inevitability that you will always reach the shore. I parallel the shore to the present. I think in many ways I intended the project to help people understand that the present is inevitable and if you can find yourself back to shore, you’ll be alright.
The song was written shortly after my album Will You Think Of Me Later? and it forms a sort of transition for me, a bridge onto another part of the “island”. I think as soon as I had the main guitar riff, the whole song came together kind of instantaneously. It was really a stream of consciousness spill, much like this piece of writing. The horns and all the textures in the first half of the song reflect the haze and build of tension before the crescendo where you finally lift that veil and embrace it for what it is. My subconscious “island” will be further explored in the next project & it is certainly wondrous.
