May Love Reclaim Our Lives

The Steoples “From the Otherside”

“From the Otherside” sounds as though it’s suspended mid-air, but not quite floating. This effect mostly comes from that old The Field trick of a stuttering ambient sample that sounds just like a skipping CD, but is somehow soothing rather than jarring. There’s no solid floor to this track – the keyboards and vocals are just as weightless, and the only thing holding it together is the relatively tight structure of the vocal melody, which incidentally sounds like “Eleanor Ribgy” reworked as an R&B slow jam. The overall effect is lovely and sexy, but also vaguely ghostly and unnerving. The singer’s lyrics are all about the present or what’s to come, but the music and the tone of his voice suggest it’s fading or already gone.

Buy it from Stones Throw.