[SONG OF THE DAY] SOULS - "Hold On"
IT’S VIBE O CLOCK ON FRIDAY MY LOVES!! 🙌🏻💖🙌🏻💖🙌🏻💖
Sorry in advance if your speakers end up getting blown out because SOULS is back with a brand new single and it’s the kind of track that you find yourself inching back to turn it up *just a little bit more* but then end up doing that until you can’t turn it up anymore. Neither myself or SOULS are responsible for any hearing loss, speeding tickets, or any other accidental side effects from getting too carried away with yourself while rocking out to this song.
This wallop of a new track, “Hold On”, comes from his forthcoming sophomore album, which we have no other details about right now other than it is coming this year and clearly we need to better prepare ourselves if this is what he’s bursting out of the gate with. In true SOULS fashion, the song features sampled vocals from gospel singer Sister Ernestine Washington’s 1954(?) song, “Holding On Parts I & II”. Those of us who have long been hip to SOULS know that project mastermind David J Gledhill is a bit of a prodigy when it comes to transforming vocals from the past into astonishing present day works of art as seen on his 2016 debut full-length, Release. With this new track, however, it’s like he took an already roaring bonfire and backed up a tanker of gasoline to Washington’s vocals. I know that Release wasn’t a subdued album by any means, but damn something about this just FEELS so different.
Basically what I’m trying to say is Geldhill should be walking around East London on this New Music Friday feeling like the fucking badass in the way that I imagine Washington would be if she heard what he did with her already incredible voice. My dude has knocked it out of the PARK.
Listen now but keep scrolling because this isn’t the only thing our hero is up to!
In addition to this new SOULS single, Gledhill has actually decided to make us all look bad for not pushing our creativity to the limit by challenging himself to a weekly songwriting challenge for what he hopes to be all of 2019. Although his primary instrument of choice is typically guitar, he’s decided to return to piano, the first instrument he ever learned to play and write music with, for the challenge. The hope is to write and record one new instrumental piano song every week and as of this fourth Friday in January 2019 he’s successfully kept to the challenge so far. I have to warn you, these songs are quite literally breathtaking.
I had fallen behind a couple of weeks in checking out the pieces, but as I was preparing for this post I started with today’s track, “Once”, and work my way through the others in descending order. Somewhere between the 30 second and minute mark, I realized I had stopped multi-tasking and was sitting very calmly with my hands on my lap listening very intently to every note. They’re so delicate and devastatingly beautiful but remember this is just a random side project he decided to do.
…..fucking showoff…….
LOL. jk jk jk
But in all seriousness, you won’t regret making the effort to spend some time with these songs. In fact, I think I’m going to build a ritual around listening to this playlist once a week as a way to spend some quality time with myself. 🙏🏻💖
