The man with a guitar and a hat from Hessian has criss-crossed his way across Germany, playing stages big and small and supporting any number of acoustic starbursts.
With his debut album Avalanche Dream approaching, the artist known as Light and Rain gives us new single Sink / Swim.
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Even though he hasn’t been in the public consciousness that long, the song still seems to mark a new maturity that his earlier work was perhaps somewhat missing. He looks different as well – the hat is gone, the hair is cut short, and the voice uses less volume to achieve more. The production is spot-on, and wraps Light and Rain’s gently insistent music in a smoothly surfaced package that befits it.
A gentleness that conveys a warm heart and an agreeably quixotic turn, Sink / Swim is liturgical in the best way, effortlessly crafted, softly urgent, and thoroughly congenial. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, instead it floats on that wave of indie folk honesty that can so often come as a welcome change to the noise all around us, and the cyclical aspect of the song lends itself perfectly to the progressively expansive sound.
A gentleness that conveys a warm heart and an agreeably quixotic turn, Sink / Swim is liturgical in the best way
Production is handled by Oliver Rüger – recorded in his Bieber studio in Offenbach (where apparently Bony M used to record their music), and helps to explain the assured and on-the-mark production qualities. Oliver is well known in the independent German scene, running his own bands while recording a huge number of indie acts (and apparently working part time as a paramedic – perhaps inspired by David Lee Roth?) as well as having worked as songwriter, producer and guitarist for the German soft pop star Sasha.
Light and Rain’s voice crouches within a gossamer web of gentle melancholy
The video sees our hero standing knee-deep in the shallows of a lake, presumably as a connect to the protagonist of the video, a young person who is choosing to, yes, sink or swim. The positivity conveyed by Light and Rain’s voice, even as it crouches within a gossamer web of gentle melancholy, wins out in the end (you’ll be happy to know). To swim is the choice.
If you like the music and you’d like to lend a hand to help it happen, you’ll be interested to know that the launch of the single Sink / Swim marks the kickoff of a crowdfunding campaign to record the intended album, click this link to find out more about crowdfunding Light and Rain – and please do take a moment to think about helping support our indie artists who not only need it, but deserve it too!
Light and Rain Facebook / Light and Rain Instagram
