Brooklyn based synthpop act Nation of Language return with a dreamy new single, “Under The Water”. The track is nothing if not atmospheric and moody, it makes the listener feel as if they’re staring out at the sea. The world is burning around them, their relationships are falling apart, maybe they’re a little strung out, things are not going well, but for this moment out by the ocean, life is calm, life is good, life is okay. It’s an evocative track.
The title “Under The Water” is fitting as it’s a song which feels distinctly free-flowing and pulsating. The chorus bleeds into the verse then, bleeds back into the chorus much as ocean waves recede into the surf. For a lesser band, it would sound sloppy and disjointed but Nation of Language has a clear finesse which allows them to use these unconventional song structures to their fullest emotional power. “Under The Water” is stripped-back nearly to the point of being an ambient track, but ultimately, the band proves that there is power in plaintive simplicity.
This song comes in the lead up to the band’s fourth studio album and first on acclaimed label Sub-Pop Records, Dance Called Memory. On the recording of the song and the experience of working with Sub-Pop, frontman, Ian Devaney, had this to say: “This [song] was the last one to make the cut before we turned the record in. We’d always had a lot of enthusiasm for the track, but the studio schedule had gotten a bit unwieldy over the holidays and an arbitrary deadline had been set to be done with LP4 prior to leaving for a January tour in Australia supporting IDLES. As such we’d turned in the final album mixes for mastering before getting on the plane and I’d resigned myself to saving ‘Under the Water’ for some subsequent release down the line. But somewhere over the Pacific Ocean while trying to sequence the album clarity set in that despite our love for rigid adherence to the production calendar, we wanted it on there. So before soundchecks on the other side of the planet we hooked up all the synths we’d brought with us in the greenroom, remotely concocting the version you hear now. If it somehow sounds distinctly of the southern hemisphere, now you’ll all know why.”
Give the song a listen here:
Photo Credit: Sam Pittman
