The second single from Jake Thomson’s solo project Mirth of Moon picks up where his 2016 compilation LP left off. The songwriter has been busy performing and recording with Breathers over the past few years, but now that Designed to Break is percolating through the airwaves, Thomson found time to focus on his solo work while refining the bedroom pop sound of his earlier material.
Denial and nostalgia purr sleepily together throughout “Room Tone” as Thomson uses classic relationship tropes to address the anxieties of a social media obsessed society while invoking the importance of sound as part of our emotional atmosphere. As the song progresses, sonic layers pile up like unread texts, but Thomson’s aerobic melody keeps the complexity from becoming overwhelming.
Sound—both as music and as ambient texture—can serve either to focus or distract, and “Room Tone” exemplifies both depending on the mood. The devious mix of lilting Bryan Ferry vocals and Donald Fagen chord progressions confronts a sunny disco backbeat and the result is as club ready as anything Holy Ghost ever produced.
Isolated as a simple pop tune, the single reflects Thomson’s lyrical depth and evolving skills as a songwriter, but when the headphones come off and the track mixes with impatient traffic, droning cicadas, and air conditioner hum, Thomson’s deft assessment of humanity’s relationship with sound becomes another brush stroke in the endless landscape of our communal aural fixation.
Listen below.
“Room Tone” is available for streaming now via Bandcamp above or through Spotify here.
More Info:
Bandcamp: mirthofmoon.bandcamp.com
Facebook: @mirthofmoon
Instagram: @mirthofmoon