Auckland-based poet-slash-composer East of Queen drops her debut single ‘Wonder’ today – a sunny, summery track with mellow instrumentation and a melody line that’s so ridiculously catchy you’ll be humming it for days.
The track is dedicated to the people in one’s life who make everything worthwhile – a well-timed message executed delightfully. The accompaniment is fairly minimal (in order to show off the delicious vocals), but still manages to capture our interest, with the instruments intertwining with one another to create a curious weaving texture, complemented beautifully by the harmonies. The tone of the piece is rather nostalgic – try to imagine some kind of Kate Nash/Regina Spektor hybrid vocalist, with soulful Etta James-esque influences galore and a charming anti-folk compositional style.
Her mellow indie-pop taste is just what the world needs right now – nothing that takes itself too seriously, but still features intelligent lyrics and earworm-inducing hooks. For a debut single, it’s a great insight into how she wants to cement herself as an artist. She can clearly pull off a track of this nature seemingly effortlessly, so we’re intrigued to see if her next releases will follow this pattern or perhaps be something more experimental – either way, we’re looking forward to it.
It’s a welcome distraction, and seems to be coming from a pretty pure and genuine place. When listening to this piece, it’s abundantly and immediately clear that there’s a lot of potential here – whichever avenue Ms. Parsons will explore next is entirely up to her, but we’re comfortably confident that it’ll be well written, slickly produced and gorgeously performed, regardless of the direction she chooses. We’re clearly not the only ones with this opinion: she’s picking up a bit of a buzz back in New Zealand, so watch this space.
There’s no need for complex orchestration or excessive production values here; the artist’s rich vocals and sweet lyrics totally and completely hold their own in this song. It’s the perfect soundtrack to the great weather we’re currently having in Berlin – we implore you to have a listen to her other work here. East of Queenย (otherwise known as Katherine Parsons) is most definitely one to watch, and we’re excited to see what she brings us next!
