There’s a lot about this track that reminded us of Enya. There’s tons of reverbs on the whole track which helps to add to that dreamy feeling, as well as some great use of some beautifully indulgent synth layers.
The occasional guitars are also drenched in reverbs, giving you that almost California surf sound in the guitar, whilst also feel like the most chilled out track we’ll probably hear today. If you’re looking for music to set up your yoga practice to, or to meditate to, this somewhat shoegaze feel track from Elison will tick all the right boxes.
We love the dreaminess of Little Lies and the very well made pre-delay on the snare reverb just makes the whole track feel calm and tranquil. We love that you can hear the wires on the under-snare too – every little detail all adds to the overall motif of the song.
There’s some great use of panning in Little Lies; the shaker – just in the left speaker – comes in and out and there’s some great use of effects; we think we may have heard some ocean noises at some points towards the end, but perhaps we were just imagining them having been transported to a place of serene stillness.
Little Lies is a perfect track for a movie montage. There’s little development and a familiar feeling melody line, both ensuring that your attention is solely focussed on your decreasing heart rate and your sense of calmness. A lot of the lyrics are indiscernible but that simply doesn’t matter. The focus of Little Lies, we feel, is not so much to tell a story, but to paint a picture.
Little Lies is a great example of a track where every channel has been given its own frequency range. Its well mixed and at any given moment, the individual instruments are clear and not competing for attention. Our only suggestion on the production would be that there’s a great deal of information in the bottom octave which the average home hi-fi won’t be able to process. The peak of the kick drum, for example, is at 25Hz. It may be best to high pass at 35Hz and give a boost on the kick channel at 45Hz to give the kick a little more space when listened to on most systems.
Elison have produced a high class and evocative soundscape that most certainly deserves attention in the shoegaze and dream pop community and surely has all the elements needed to be considered for licensing.
