Here at the Send Me Your Ears studio today, we’ve been listening to the latest single from Hong Kong artist, Carpe Diem. Twist In The Wind was released on the 27th March, 2023, and is a 5-minute cinematic performance with female vocals.
Twist In The Wind is a unique and powerful exploration of the feelings involved during a panic attack. It’s about your mind spinning out of control like a tornado, and the need to let go of our emotions of panic and anger, hurt and trauma and to try to reset our thinking.
There is some cool panning in the intro and as the instrumental section at the start progresses, it feels a touch psychedelic. The instrumental sections are heavy on echoes and reverbs that change up the feel of the track and blur the tempo in places, making the listener deliberately uncomfortable to echo the theme of the song.
When the vocals first come in, they are loaded with electronic effects, but these are stripped back for the verses, which drop back to become acoustic guitar led, with female vocals. Ada, the vocalist, makes superb use of head voice and reminded us of Julianne Regan from All About Eve.
We love the different sections and the builds in the instrumental sections. A couple of places have a moment of A Capella, giving Ada a chance to really shine. The second verse contains some extra vocals and some interesting pulsating violin. There is also some superb use of tambourine to add interest to certain sections.
An electric guitar solo follows the melody line for the most part before suddenly creating a fake ending. A complete stop which leads the listener to think that perhaps it’s OK to hit the reset button on life and manage the panic and hurt.
A great deal of effort has clearly been put into the lyric video that accompanies the song. With several women standing in the wind holding scarves and looking anxious, it creates an unease in the viewer that matches the theme of the song.
Ideas from our ears
A hi-pass filter at 40Hz and a large boost around 60Hz would remove some low end rumble and give some extra depth to the kick drum sound. A couple of cuts around 450Hz and 1kHz would reduce some occasional ‘boxy’ and ‘nasal’ tones. A high shelf boost in the top octave would increase the brightness and ‘air’ in the track. Finally, a light compressor/limiter with some make-up gain would add a touch more warmth as well as raising the volume. As always, these are just some ideas from our ears.
Final thoughts
Carpe Diem’s single, Twist In The Wind, is an Asian-based, highly creative soundscape that explores themes that should be talked about a great deal more, with music that perfectly matches the subject matter.
https://facebook.com/CarpeDiem.hkmusic
https://www.twitter.com/CarpeDiem_HKG
https://open.spotify.com/artist/0gAOMODmNYgfA02sJt85gu
https://m.soundcloud.com/user-397353701
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW9WIVqytzRahUTd8P0PizQ
https://www.instagram.com/carpediem.hkmusic/