TWO HEARTS-APART UNDER,THE SAME SKY
Independiente, Chile
Rating: 60
by: Jean-Stephane Beriot
The Same Sky is the emerging project from Joseph Simon, a guy from Chile who at his 15, that doesn’t sound his age at all; his voice might reveal his age but his lyrics and composition strike to mature places, more in the lines of M. Ward and Belle & Sebastian. His artistry isn’t comparable to those references of course, but he is already showing signs of freedom as an auteur in the works. Recently he was featured on the Music Alliance Pact as the representative of Chile, he sounded familiar and so I realized that I had I first met him through Super45’s Nuevos Talentos competition, where he was a clear standout but the tracks he submitted were purely melancholic, almost drowned in gloominess and despair, something his first LP Two Heart – Apart Under has to deal with.
It’s definitely an album that is best digested with little or no lights on, with headphones and a disposition to contemplate the first offering a promising artist gives us, and that entitles a bunch of things among them, the fact that he’s got plenty of time to mold his music. I am not crazy about his voice I must say, it’s too shaky to hold the confidence he portrays in his instruments, and in some cases as in “We sleep under the Same Sky” he is almost crying. In terms of production and design this reminds of the unreleased demos from Juan Son (“Rancho Depresso”, “Iceberg” etc.) and it’s dreamy like Sr. Amable, Prietto Viaja al Cosmos con Mariano and Vapourboat.
He tends to finish every line with a vocalized echo, and I usually don’t have a problem with that except that he overdoes it in tracks like “Too busy to tell your name” and “Cielo Azul”, making them almost unbearable to listen. But he is successful to stimulate senses in “Señor de Niñez” and “Don’t Fall Asleep”, the two peaks in the album, mostly because they don’t feel so forced like the rest of the album that requires intimate conditions to chew over. It’s almost like I want to side slice the album, there are some really brilliant moments on the background, but this is ultimately folk and we can only hope for an honest performance, but a contrasting female voice or reduction of vocal supply wouldn’t hurt at all.