In our ears today, we’re listening to Aini’s latest single, Under My Spell (Seherazade). This Finnish artist has released a Disney vibed duet inspired by Thousand- and one-nights tales.
We love this! We’re always suckers for anything with a bit of a Disney feel to it, and Under My Spell absolutely hits that spot without being even remotely cheesy! It has almost a euphoric, Lion King, kind of feel to it and we love that.
The song starts on gentle piano with glorious female vocals. The vocals are warm and fragile with just a touch of vulnerability about them. The start of the song feels as though it could be a Tori Amos song, just by the style of the vocalist and the gentle piano underneath.
As the song progresses, more vocals (male) are added and layered. We particularly love how, for the most part, the male vocals are an octave below the lead, rather than going for the typical and obvious 3rd above.
At about 1 minute in, the drums and full band sound comes in and you are just lifted into an imaginary Kingdom. This is just magical!
The rise and fall throughout the song is wonderful, it serves to maintain interest for the listener and we especially like the change up of drum pattern in the chorus. The toms underneath the layered vocals is superb.
There are times when the female vocal sounds a little like Amy Lynn Hartzler (Evanescence), but there is a character all of her own here and this song is highly original.
The male vocal, for the most part, is backing, but there is a brief moment where he gets the opportunity to display a rather spectacular control in his falsetto as he takes the lead just for a moment.
Under My Spell (Seherazade) is a truly dramatic sounding film score that has it all. A gentle start, building to some euphoric moments in the middle before tiptoeing out quietly on just a few gentle piano notes.
From a production perspective, Under My Spell (Seherazade), has a very modern production on it, with everything pushed against the limiter. We feel that this has just taken a little of the dynamic out of the track. We’d also suggest a small shelf boost of the top 3 octaves to add a little extra brightness into the track.
We think Under My Spell (Seherazade) is likely to be our Find Of The Day! This is spectacular, dramatic and cinematic music that has been well scored, well performed and well produced. Beautiful!