Surf O Rays enter with a quietly intriguing debut single, “Dissolve,” that sounds like catching a golden-hour wave in the midst of a half-remembered dream. The song floats effortlessly across the border between memory and mirage from its first note, gauzed with springtime reverb and analog warmth and with harmonies that are so soft, they sound like whispers from another room.
If you ever wondered what it would sound like if Elliott Smith detoured to the coast with Mazzy Star and played records with the Beach Boys underwater, “Dissolve” provides the uncannily clear answer to that question. Surf O Rays’ sound is at once intimate and expansive, each chord a soft ripple, each lyric a faded photograph that invites you to linger just a little longer. It’s a song for twilight drives, abandoned motels on misty highways, and the gentle pang of letters you never mailed.
The magic of “Dissolve” is that it’s thoughtful and entirely new, too. Surf O Rays isn’t simply making music, they’ve built a surrealist soundscape, a private universe of surfgaze, at which time it appears to stand still. Analog fuzz seeps in across waves and delicate vocal lines, with the understated instrumentation providing room for the listener’s imagination to wander. By the time the track dissolves, of course, you’re not quite sure if you’ve been listening, or remembering with, of course, that uncertainty exactly the point.
This is more of an invitation than a debut. Surf O Ray is an invitation to enter a limbo, where the tunes are warm currents, the lyrics half-remembered dreams, and every second has the pale melancholic sheen of twilight. “Dissolve” guarantees you there’s a whole universe in every note, and that universe is worth getting lost in.
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