Single Review: Dead Sea

Here we have the second single to be taken from Anthea’s forthcoming debut solo album, The Vicar’s Daughter, which will be out later this year. Hailing from Lyttleton, she used to spend her Wednesday nights with The Eastern until Adam McGrath told her, ”you gotta write your own music”, so she did, forming the country, rock ‘n’ roll machine Runaround Sue with whom she recorded two albums and toured widely. Here she has produced a country single which also contains large elements of dream pop, with both Jazmine Mary and Reb Fountain coming to mind while I am sure she has also been listening to heavy doses of the mighty UK band Alabama 3.

This song is all about atmosphere, instruments being played delicately with plenty of reverb, where Anthea then drapes her vocals over the bare bones to create something which is almost hypnotic. This is music which would fade away if attempted to be played as background music and instead deserves to be played on headphones where the rest of the world is shut away. Emotional, almost fractured, this is as far away from mass produced pop music as it is possible to be, and is all the better for it. The trumpet is only just being blown, but the impact of those quavering notes on the tapestry she is weaving is incredible. This is all about restraint, about creating a certain mood, which invites us to look deeply into our own beings.