Vespre Breathes Life into Spring on New Single “Back to Me”

Photo Credit: Abigail Lynch

For some artists, the last year of increased solitude offered an opportunity to step into their craft and be more prolific and creative than ever before. For others, it presented a debilitating pit of emotional and physical quicksand, making it nearly impossible to get through the day, much less create anything. Kaylan Waterman, aka Vespre, landed somewhere in between the two. Her latest single and first solo release in almost three years comes after a long period of collaborating, resting, reflecting and rediscovering her muse. “Back to Me” is a buoyant reunion with Spring, self and love lost and found; and one that Waterman worked damn hard to get to.

“I know a lot of people who are like, ‘I made my magnum opus during COVID!’ That was not me, at all,” says Waterman. “I tried a couple of times and my body, my spirit just told me: Don’t even stress about it, but this isn’t it for you… focus on other stuff.” So, that’s what she did. Waterman, who works full time at local label, artist management and sync company Assemble Sound, already has enough on her plate to tire anyone out. But, on top of working full time and collaborating with her brother Kaleb the Intern, Moon King, and others in 2020, she started a sharing table in her neighborhood to provide food and other necessities to folks in the community. 

While Waterman devoted her time and energy to filling other people’s plates, her’s was running low. “I just did not have it in me to create. I was too stressed, I was too sad, I was grieving, I was just like in survival mode,” Waterman explains. “I felt very depleted and music was the only thing I knew that would help fill me up.” So she started writing for herself, meeting at the cross-section of heartbreak and healing. 

Waterman explains that the idea for “Back to Me” started almost as a clapback to peoples’ responses to her breakup. She says that although she’s the one who walked away from her relationship, everyone assumed she was dumped. “I would tell people, and they’d be like, ‘I’m so sorry, he’s the worst!’” Waterman says. “And I’m like, ‘umm, maybe I’m the worst…What are you talking about? I ended this.’” 

The song allowed Waterman to reclaim her narrative and communicate the complex array of emotions that can accompany a breakup. She wanted to portray the duality of being resolute in her decision but still feeling loss and grief. “I just wanted people to know that women – especially independent, very self aware women – can make difficult decisions and still be soft and longing and wanting. We hold both of those things at the same.”

Waterman embodies this duality in “Back to Me.” Though her poetic lyrics focus on nostalgia and longing for a former lover, the music that accompanies them is upbeat, driven by shiny synths and ebullient percussion. The video (co-directed by herself and Andrew Miller) mixes the ethereal and the mundane, showing Waterman as both a serene nature goddess and a forlorn bodega shopper. Though she’s feeling the ripple effects of heartbreak, Waterman refuses to hide from her complicated emotions, and is determined to dance through it all. 

“I think I did accidentally write a pop song but I don’t really gravitate towards pop in that way,” she says. The songwriter, pianist and producer grew up listening to Detroit house and attending the jazz festival as early as age 9. She says that she feels most inspired by female artists like Patrice Rushen – whom she lovingly named her Subaru after – who sit somewhere in between house music and jazz, disco and R&B. “I want people to be able to dance to the music I make, because Detroit is such a dancing town,” says Waterman. “I wanna speak to that culture more. I wanna write for us more. For my friends that go out dancing like me.”

Dancing in the middle seems to be where Waterman finds her stride. In the middle of heartbreak and happiness, rest and resilience, triumph and tears. Her music finds its strength in vulnerability and suggests that the listener do the same. “I feel like I’m coming back to life and I wanted people to hear it in that way,” she says. “Maybe it’s your creativity coming back or maybe it’s a person or maybe it’s just spring. Maybe you’re happy that this horrible winter is over… I wanted people to listen to it and hear however they wanted to hear it.”

Follow Vespre on Facebook and Instagram for ongoing updates.

PLAYING DETROIT: Tammy Lakkis Fuses Songwriter and DJ Sensibilities on Debut Single

This week, Detroit-based producer, songwriter and DJ Tammy Lakkis released her debut single, “This is How It Goes,” a mesmerizing meditation on the cyclical nature of life. Lakkis fuses her background in more traditional songwriting and her love affair with Detroit’s electronic music scene, honing her original demo with the help of Assemble Sound resident Jonah Raduns-Silverstein (who produces his own music under the moniker Jo Rad Silver).

Lakkis’ crystal clear vocals are a welcome and surprising pair to the track’s droning bass line and punchy percussion. “This is How it Goes” has the cadence and repetition of the dance track Lakkis spins as a DJ, but her poetic lyrics provide a clear narrative that’s normally not found in most electronic music.

We spoke with Lakkis about making the track and how being in Detroit has shaped her music.


AF: Can you talk a little about your background in music? How long have you been producing? Where did you learn or did you teach yourself?

TL: I’ve been singing since I was a toddler. I picked up guitar when I was 13 and started writing songs a few years later. I was briefly in an alternative rock band called Tammy and the Enemies that formed in 2016 and that’s when my songwriting started taking most of its shape. My segue into producing was getting a drum machine and a looper pedal and making loops of my voice, guitar, and other sounds (like flicking water bottles, scratching the mic with my nails, hitting things against each other, etc.) and just exploring. That led to getting Ableton and later a sampler and that’s mainly how I make my music now. I was lucky to have friends around me I could learn from. I try to keep it fresh and use a variety of electronic and analog instruments and sounds with each new track.

AF: How does being a DJ influence your songwriting/production?

TL: I’m in the midst of a musical identity crisis because I used to primarily be a singer-songwriter but now I find myself making dance tracks on my sampler and my answer has been to fuse the two worlds together into more of a trip-hop vibe. DJing has added another dimension to music-making: now when I write songs, I consider how they speak to the body in addition to the mind and soul. Also, I’ve learned storytelling through DJing and going to DJ sets. It’s made me consider the context around individual songs and what story that context tells.

AF: Were there any artists in particular that you were listening to a lot when you wrote this track?

TL: Björk, Stereolab, and Portishead!

AF: What was your process for writing this song?

TL: One night in my garage in the spring of 2016, I laid down a basic beat on a drum machine and started making creepy loops of my guitar on a looper pedal and drank a Soft Parade and sang over the loop for hours and hours and hours. The main lyric of the song: “This is how it goes, it goes and goes and goes” kept coming back. So I spent a few weeks building around that. The final track is pretty similar in shape to what I originally came up with in my garage that summer but with less guitar, more electronic elements, and a much more refined and gritty sound. It’s mainly electronic besides the guitar, vocals, and me and Jonah’s clapping.

AF: What was the collaboration process like with Jonah?

TL: We did mostly sound design stuff and some arrangement stuff. We replaced my original recordings with analog drum machine and synth sounds and really spent time dialing in the exact sounds we were looking for. We did a complete rehab of the guitar, bass, and drums and it added so much to the complexity of the sound. We went through and honed in every sound in the track. It was a lot of work but it really paid off. I had been a little stuck before working with Jonah since I had been working on this song for so long and could no longer see it clearly and lost direction of what to do next. Jonah also mixed/engineered the track, so I learned better ways to make different sounds fit and be more accommodating of each other.

AF: How does living in Detroit influence your music / DJing?

TL: Living in Detroit is like having an endless stream of inspiration to tap into at any time. I go to shows several times a week and inevitably recycle the stuff I hear out in my music. Whether or not I’m making dance music, all the music I make is deeply inspired by dance music (primarily house music). Detroit has made me ditch my acoustic act and become an electronic artist. I am very inspired by all of the music coming out of Detroit and all the people here making sounds.

AF: What is this song about, to you?

TL: The transient nature of things. The inevitability of change and growth and moments turning into other moments turning into other moments turning into other moments, etc. I think, anyway. It may have subconsciously been a spinoff of Ruth Stone’s poem “Train Ride.”

PLAYING DETROIT: Producer Nydge Confronts Anxiety With Electropop on Datsun Turbo

Detroit-based producer Nydge, born Nigel Van Hemmye, releases his first solo EP, Datsun Turbo, today. While Van Hemmye has spent the last year building an impressive catalog of pop anthems featuring other vocalists, this is his first foray as a solo artist. The EP is centered around Van Hemmye’s experience with severe anxiety and how it manifests itself in different aspects of his life. Although the subject matter is dense, his upbeat electric compositions could easily serve as the soundtrack to a VR race car simulation or modern-day Back to the Future remake.

Van Hymme says the opening track, “Immortal Youth,” is a nostalgic rumination on what life was like before he started having anxiety attacks. It opens with glockenspiel-like synths that recall the innocence of childhood. The lyrics follow suit, reflecting on happier times when debilitating worry didn’t exist. “Immortal youth / we have endless days / to find a happy place / it all comes in waves,” sings Van Hymme.

Datsun Turbo also touches on how anxiety can affect romantic relationships. Van Hymme says “Come Over” is about “the fear of never being able to commit or forgive myself due to my fatalistic inner narrative.” Arguably the EP’s catchiest track, the song tells the story of a yo-yo romance, where both characters keep coming back to a relationship that should be over– a theme that even people who don’t suffer from anxiety can relate to.

Van Hemmye’s also released a video along with the EP that attempts to explain his experience with anxiety further. In the short film, he details his first panic attack: “My heart was racing, and my walls of reality were melting.” The video goes on to give a chillingly accurate visual representation of what it’s like to have an anxiety or panic disorder, melding visions of clarity and beauty with unsettling disorientation. Van Hemmye explains that he started turning to long drives as a coping mechanism for his racing mind and heart. “I think driving has always soothed me because it occupies just enough of my anxious mind to not allow for excessive worrying.”

Van Hemmye says he feels a kinship to the Datsun, an economized version of an expensive European sports car. “That’s kind of how I see myself in music,” says Van Hemmye. “I’m a frugal kid from Detroit who makes accessible and honest music by crafting big pop music sounds in little DIY studios.”

We talked with Nydge about the story behind his first solo project and how dedication to a craft can be the best medication of all.

AF: I heard you were named after a race car driver – who is it and what’s the story behind that?

Nigel Van Hemmye: I was named after Nigel Mansell, who drove in Formula 1 with a thick, caterpillar mustache. After hearing one of the announcers say his name on television one Sunday afternoon, my mom decided not to name me Colin and go with Nigel. My Grandma read Colin as “colon” and that might have influenced her decision as well. Most people I meet associate me with Nigel Thornberry. Every now and then I get an XTC fan sing me, “We’re always making plans for Nigel.” I probably know more dogs named Nigel than I do people. I’m just out here trying to give Nigels a good name.

AF: Although the project definitely feels like electropop, I hear some early 2000’s rock influence — did you listen to a lot of Strokes-era music growing up?

NVH: I was in Germany for an exchange program at 16 for a month. One weekend my new German friends and I went club-hopping in Berlin. All of them were playing The Strokes! I distinctly remember everyone yelling along to the lyrics. Music like Franz Ferdinand, The Shins, and Phoenix bring me back to that moment. Growing up I listened to anything from Nine Inch Nails to Empire of the Sun to really wonderful, obnoxious techno and dubstep. I actually made really bad techno songs under the name “Nydge” in high school.

AF: I know from your film that this album was a coping mechanism for your anxiety, but a lot of the tracks sound upbeat/peppy – can you talk about that choice and how some of these songs came together?

NVF: I think about music as an escape – a place I can go where things make more sense or sometimes don’t have to. There’s an amazing notion in psychology about the concept of “Flow” or being in “The Zone” which I feel like I enter when on stage or producing or jamming. It’s a very soothing and uncomplicated feeling. Anxiety for me has always been the over-abundance of thought: racing mind, paranoia, irritability until it crashes into panic. Learning to do something so naturally that you enter that “zone” or “flow state” is the coping part. It’s the process rather than the product. My greatest hope is to either give a listener a brief escape from the negative or enhance the positive experience they are already having.

Full disclosure – I feel the best foot to put forward is one which is upbeat and peppy. It’s fun to play live, it’s easier to land on movie, TV and commercial work and there’s a huge demand for it on the radio. “Immortal Youth” was actually born out of the skeleton of a song I was writing for sync but decided to keep. “Baby, I” came from what I thought a car commercial would sound like with my voice singing about anxiety.

AF: “Come Over” and “Y U Gotta B” are about how anxiety affects a relationship. Can you talk a little more about the specific experiences/hurdles in a relationship that are a result of anxiety?

NVH: I think from the outside anxiety can present itself in a myriad of different ways. Ultimately for me it’s about stress management. Relationships can be stressful – even the positive parts. Anxiety also presents itself as my relationship with the future. “Come Over was the expression of worry about a future with or without someone. Stress in this way comes from some of the decisions I was refusing to make – either not allowing things to progress forward or not having difficult but important conversations about ending things.

With Kim Vi, Y U Gotta B is a playful take on how confusing and frustrating it can be when you don’t know what the other person is thinking but you’re still very much invested in them. What they do or say is magnified under the lens of your adoration, and anxiety comes in and whispers in your ear: “They’re playing with you. They don’t really like you…” which really comes down to a lack of trust and communication.

AF: This is your first cohesive piece of work where you are the centerpiece – how does that feel?

NVH: It feels great! For the longest time, I felt like I was producing and performing without ever getting to know myself separate of others. I relished in the collaboration and the learning it brought me but I still somehow felt unproven or incomplete. The more I wear the “solo artist” hat, the more I understand the choices other artists make, both personally and within the industry. I’m here to constantly improve, challenge myself and others to create and try their best. On a lighter note, I had these songs, I loved them, I had a platform, and no good answer to the question: why not?

AF: Did making the explanation video for the EP put you in a vulnerable place?

NVH: Yeah, but also no. I’m very up front about my anxiety and panic disorder. I’m not really ashamed of it and I don’t think others should be [ashamed of theirs] either – although I understand why they are. I wrote the whole piece as a short story which I sent to a couple friends who said I should share it. I think I hesitated for a microsecond and then wrote up a shot list for the short film. I acknowledge wholeheartedly I am not perfect and one of the best ways of coping with anxiety is sharing the strategies I’ve garnered over the years with those who struggle as well. At the end of the day, music is my own personal worry stone, something through which I can pour in my doubts, insecurities and feelings and come back with not only something I’m proud of, but a more thoughtful version of myself. The lesson it endlessly teaches me is devotion to a craft or skill is one of the most meaningful relationships you can have with yourself and the world.

PLAYING DETROIT: Sam Austins Shines on Ode to Rihanna, “Fenty”

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photo by Bre’Ann White (@breannwhlgn)

Twenty-one-year-old alternative-R&B artist Sam Austins released a fun as hell single this week, named after Rihanna’s cosmetic line, “Fenty.” The song is a lighter follow-up to Austins’ anxiety-ridden 2017 debut album, Angst, and celebrates widening cultural perceptions of beauty. The release was accompanied by a massive billboard in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood that shows a gorgeous Austins donning bold lips and a glimmering eye, a testament to his allegiance to the brand.

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Photo: @alecaretakis

Although Austins isn’t the first hip-hop artist to challenge societal stereotypes of beauty, masculinity, and gender, he is one of the few. While icons like David Bowie, Prince, and Boy George made room for more fluidity in the rock/pop realm, hip-hop culture has been historically less forgiving of alternative expressions of masculinity and style. Frank Ocean helped in starting to shift hip-hop’s homogeneous image in his 2017 music video, “Nikes,” where he spends part of the video clad in eyeliner and glitter. Austins’ glamorous cover art follows suit and has inspired people all over to share their own versions of feeling themselves.

Since the release of “Fenty,” dozens of fans – including beloved Detroit visual artist, Ellen Rutt – have sent Austins and his affiliated residency, Assemble Sound, videos of themselves singing, dancing, and glowing the fuck up to the infectious song. Produced by Sergio Romero and Detroit’s Ice Pic, the song’s bouncy beat and entourage of background hype-men are the perfect compliments to Austins’ feel-good lyrics: “I’m still fresh off the drop like it’s Fenty / Sitting front row at the show like a Fenty.” There’s arguably no better high than feeling like you are Rihanna.

“Fenty” is a continuation of Austins’ artistic evolution and an excuse to sing into your selfie camera at full volume, no matter who you are.

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PLAYING DETROIT: Assemble Sound’s Alexander Lynch Returns With Moody Banger “Wine Drunk”

From the outside, Assemble Sound looks like just another one of Detroit’s beautiful historic churches. And, technically, it is – but this particular church’s religion is music. The 145-year-old church serves as an artist residency and recording studio, does licensing/supervision, and has garnered a lot of attention for the diverse music made by its artists. The collective’s most recent release comes from alternative R&B artist, Alexander Lynch. Although Lynch, a native of Norway, Michigan, has only been living in Detroit for a few months, he’s already made himself known in the Detroit music scene.

“Wine Drunk” is his first single since his 2016 EP release, Love Lives, and is the perfect soundtrack for winter heartbreak and reflection. Co-produced by Jon Zott, the track balances warm synths with Lynch’s magnetizing vocals, creating a feeling reminiscent of a boozy haze. Lynch told Impose magazine that the song is about “recalling past emotional experiences through the filter of intoxication and isolation. It touches on several moments of regret in my life in a sort of self-deprecating cocktail.” That’s surely something we can all relate to during the holiday season. Take a sip and savor the sounds of regret and new beginnings.

PLAYING DETROIT: Nydge x Greater Alexander Release Stunning Visual for “Mask”

 

It’s been a hot minute since we covered an Assemble Sound creation but this recent release in their Sunday Song series was too jarring to ignore. A unique collaboration between New York born, Athens raised, and now Detroit-based artist Alexander Vlachos (Greater Alexander) and synth darling (and Assemble resident) Nigel Van Hemmye (NYDGE), “Mask” is a mystic, misty and powerful exploration of internal and external duality. Showing masterful restraint, “Mask” patiently creates space between the music and the message, building to a perfectly composed panic attack of self-actualization and acceptance that the biggest questions may not have answers. Vlachos sings “There’s a space inside your head/That shuffles in a new beginning/Can you feel what you aren’t seeing?/What aren’t you seeing?/Let the mask come down” with a curious certainty. Directed by Jay Curtis Miller and produced by Corinne Wiseman, the video for the track, though featuring a rather literal mask, is a thoughtful marriage of calm and distress as it bounces from a muted tonal imagery of Vlachos being grabbed by pairs of mysterious hands to vibrant bursts of color, water and flames as the mask is removed, replaced and destroyed. Cleansing and confounding, “Mask” is both a sonic and visual confrontation that offers turmoil you can dance to.

Check out the stunning visuals to the existential crisis that is “Mask” below:

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PLAYING DETROIT: Humons “Try it for Me”

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Sonically celestial crusader Humons dropped his debut EP Spectra earlier this month; a whirling, spacious collision of emotional decluttering and the rhythmic freedom of danceable electronica. Humons paired up with director Shane Ford of The Work to produce the video for “Try it for Me,” a stunning visual marriage of organic and digital landscapes, both of which reflect the sincere duality of Spectra as a whole bringing Humons’ vision full circle.

The video follows our unassuming, wanderlust-ing heroine, dressed notably in white for the entire ride. We are introduced to her apartment, then the beach where she seems entranced by having her hands in the sand like some goddess of the elements. Some of the most beautiful frames are set in a lush forest where our blonde, angelic maven of mysticism crosses path with a woman who inhabited the forest before she came along. Their eyes beg with curiosity and when they touch, though innocently, we are reminded of our own guides, pathways, and our personal sensuality. Where the video challenges reality is in the toggling between what seems like three different realms; waking life, dream life and the world trapped in between. The pulsing camera work in conjunction with the throbbing synth beats breaks the walls between viewer, voyeur, and participant. This ever changing dial of realities is illustrated by a digital distortion that feels more vortex inhalation than noise. From echoing images that vibrate to hazy, pinhole visions the deja vu sensation is calmed when we are finally led to the water’s edge with our two spiritual pilots. What the video champions is the encouragement to search one’s self and ones environment; a rite of passage you can dance to.

Ride the waves of Humons latest vision quest with the video for “Try it for Me” below:

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PLAYING DETROIT PREMIERE: Nydge “El Segundo (ft. Kim Vi)

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What better way to express an impassioned, tumultuous romantic entanglement than through a tropical, pop whirlwind that is as torn and collaborative in its conception as the aforementioned relationship? “El Segundo” is the latest sonic story from Assemble Sound resident producer and synth-pop artist Nydge who is as masterful as a collaborator as he is a solo entity. With an impeccable flair for sophisticated and positively infectious hooks and shoulder-shimmying beats, here Nydge finds an accessibility without conceding his innately distinct  auditory architecture. “I try and be as intentional as I can with making music and with the Nydge project, specifically. I want to make pop music as interesting as possible while still being consumable,” explains producer/artist Nigel Van Hemmye. “Often times I find myself trashing musical sketches early on, sometimes less than an hour in. I now find my way to be more akin to mining for ideas. Sometimes I go deep into the cave of creativity to come out with nothing. My job, then, isn’t to make something amazing every day, it’s to be ready, patient, open and excited to strike gold; pickaxe in hand.”

Featuring multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Kim Vi whose contribution aided the tracks rolling momentum and solidified Nydge’s commitment to concise layers, “El Segundo” is refined yet grinds with a untamed attitude. “I’ve never been to El Segundo. I didn’t even know it existed until Kim Vi spouted it out for the first line of the first verse. Kim is a welcome asset to any writing session.” Nigel says. “Throughout the song I used his arsenal of abilities, ranging from guitar, bass, singing, clapping and chordal changes.” The result? A textural playscape that is tender and frustrating with an intoxicatingly pop-purist bounce that could just as easily be a dance-floor groove or a fiery backseat rendezvous.

Listen to the latest from Nydge (ft. Kim Vi) below:

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PLAYING DETROIT: Humons “Underneath”

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Photo by Andrew Amine & design by Ellen Rutt

“Dream house” voyager Ardalan Sedghi is Humons, a kinetically electrified project whose atomic beats swell in “Underneath” the debut single from the Spectra EP due out this fall. Although Sedghi isn’t entirely new blood on the scene, “Underneath” delivers a freshness that rises with a palpable and cosmic humidity and is best experienced with hips magnetically fused to someone else’s: a symbiotic gravity grind.

Although Humons is technically one huMAN it can’t be ignored that the seamless production is a vital component as to why “Underneath” works as a living, breathing, pulsating soundscape and not just a party jam at a hazy house party in Southwest. Produced and mixed by mastermind Jon Zott at the Assemble Sound studios, the track lends itself to explore various abstractions. Consider an animated sci-fi journey riding the tail of a comet or a microscopic view of anatomical fascinations like blood cells bumping against artery walls, fighting illness or a time-lapse of vultures picking apart a freshly deceased roadside meal. Mixing staccato guitar with clashing synths and clapping wave-to-shore-like drum machine beats gives Sedghi’s breathy, minimalist vocals space to float. What this track masterfully accomplishes is its “choose your own adventure” vibe. It can be sad and brooding if that’s what you need or it can be your sexually ravenous anthem. Either way, “Underneath” ushers us from Summer to Fall and into territory undisclosed.

Get spacey with Humons latest below:

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PLAYING DETROIT: Nydge “Lemme Know” (Feat. Joshua)

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Detroit has always been the dark horse holy ground for musical exploration and long-term contribution to music at large. Assemble Sound, a collective of collaborative artists as well as a full-fledged recording studio nestled in a historic church in Detroit’s Corktown district, is redefining the music community and blowing the glass ceiling off of possibilities for local artists.

In the spirit of collaboration, Assemble forged an idea that would allow artists to experiment with each other’s sound as well as find a home for whatever mashup is born from that session. The Sunday Song Series (which stipulates that the song must be a collaboration and go through the peer review process and, of course, must be recorded at Assemble Sound). It’s an “all-hands-on-deck” situation at Assemble, but not because there aren’t enough hands to start with. Rather, an extension on Assemble’s philosophy which is deeply rooted in exploration of creative freedom while still focusing on the formalities of how to succeed in the industry. At the end of summer, Assemble will release a 12-track album of all the Sunday Song Series and as summer comes to a close, we are gifted song 11 from the series which is a collaboration between Nydge (producer and soundsmith Nigel Van Hemmye) and Joshua (one half of trip-hop duo Gosh Pith) titled “Lemme Know.”

A trippy love ballad that begs for another chance and bounces around like teenagers flirting at the mall, “Lemme Know” is a playful plea and a totally danceable account of an impending heartbreak. The shimmying synths and periodic chimes give a montage feel; from first kiss, to meeting the fam, to growing disinterest to a bold “take-me-back” 80s John Cusack worthy gesture. The song is quick but satiated; Joshua’s verses are sleepily distressed until the chorus builds to a hopeful plan to “keep this love alive” where his vocals climax. The production is radio ready and could easily squeeze a female vocalist to duet the cat and mouse fluctuation of who loves who and how hard. But the track is effective with Joshua’s singular bright side desperation as Nigel’s fashion show runway mixtape vibe clashes to form pop purity at its funnest.

Listen to the collaboration below and click here if you want to know what’s happening at Assemble.

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