ANDREA WARD
Awake At Night
New York, United States
‘Awake at Night’ is the latest single from Andrea Ward. It's a folk/tribal track that is so unique I don’t know where to begin. Andrea Ward brings so much to the table all at once, yet ‘Awake at Night’ is minimal, breathy, quiet. The song takes its strength in the form of tonal and layered steel tongue drum melodies that overlap and play with one another in silence. Vocals fill the gaps, they prod and stab, soft and supple in their harmonies they shift from low to high in a flash, fog to smoke. The percussion is wild. It is rhythmic and it works to stir up the flavours already present in the track into a complex blend of folk and pop.
The song starts swiftly. The vocals throw a line out into the dark and the steel tongue drum catches it, lighting up the sky with splotches of vibrant oranges and teals. Bass and drums set in and the tone changes, the colour falls away, the world is opaque. Trust in the melody. Its rising-falling current ebb the colour back into the flow and the song evolves as it progresses owing to the changing velocity of the instrumental paired with the tactile lyrics. ‘Awake at Night’ is a song that shows you so many new things all at once, your initial reaction is simply to exhale. You then process all of these new sounds, melodies, combinations and lyrics and what you are left with is an astounding single, that relies on its creativity and instrumental differentiation to push that melody into the starts. Mind-boggling in the best of ways. Andrea Ward makes sculptures in sound.