Nashville (US) artist, Jack Landess, has recently released a single, Mocean, and we’ve been taking a listen here at the Send Me Your Ears studio today.
Mocean, in Jack’s words, is a fun track with ironically depressing lyrics”. Focussing on leaving his home town and beginning his journey in college, the song lyrics focus on his uncertainty about his future. Combining the word “motion” with “ocean” to coincide with the surf rock influences in the guitar stylings of the track, Mocean has a definite “sitting on the beach” feel to it.
The song starts with the sound of waves crashing which then blends into some dreamy picked guitar with chorus effect. Fading out almost completely and then fading in with the main song is a clever trick that takes the listener in a whole new direction.
The heavily reverbed and distant vocals feel almost more like another instrument than a lead vocal, making the track feel quite a chillout almost instrumental feeling number. The layered vocals add to this feeling too. Mocean is quite simply a wall of sun drenched and relaxing sounds. Perhaps in places a little Kraftwerk like and at times a little like The Cure.
The surf rock guitar style works well throughout the song and with a breakdown at around 3 minutes in with swelling keys and a build where the drums rejoin and become more present in the track, the guitars return with a repeated riff that builds to the end.
From a production perspective, this is a really smooth track with a great feel good summer kind of vibe. A little boost around 125Hz would give some extra thickness to the low end but be careful not to boost the tuning of the snare too much (160Hz to 165Hz) which could do with a small but thin cut. Also, to our ears, the digital sound of the beater hitting the kick drum skin is a little dominant so a cut around 5kHz would even that out a little. A shelf boost from around 8kHz upwards would give some extra life and presence to an already great sounding song.
For lovers of Dream Pop with some 80s influences, Mocean is likely to tick all the right boxes. Jack Landess has managed to create a real vibe with this song that washes over you like the ocean on a summer’s day.