Newfoundland (Canada) artist, Selina Boland, has just released her latest single, Not Another Timid Soul, and we’ve been taking a listen here at the Send Me Your Ears studio today.
Not Another Timid Soul is a cute and catchy indie folk track that washes over you. It’s a positive feeling song that puts you in a good frame of mind.
In Selina’s own words;
“Not Another Timid Soul is a song about letting go of the habit of chasing people; especially when it comes to romantic
relationships and connections. Even though I prefer to avoid pursuit and let it happen naturally, it is important to be confident and fearless in the process. Every time I play this song it’s a gentle reminder to myself to never have a spirit of fear and timidity and take whatever risks that are necessary in order to grow and become the kind of person I was meant to be.”
We can totally get behind this, and what a wonderful theme, and a great reminder at every single show she performs, to be the best she can. We love it!
The song starts with a gentle acoustic guitar section with vocals over the top. Selina’s vocals are breathy and vulnerable. The melody of the vocals is comfortable and easily accessible. You feel quickly that you could sing along.
At around 45 seconds, the song bursts into a full band track, adding drums and backing vocals. The backing vocals sit wonderfully in the mix and really add a great deal of character to the track.
The snare drum track is gorgeous and sits really well, pushing the song along always and really popping nicely. It really builds well into each chorus and adds some fantastic rise and fall in all the right places.
The middle 8 with repeated vocal line shows some great diversity in Selina’s voice with some beautiful head voice moments before leading into the final section which returns to the acoustic guitar playing a few bars alone.
From a production perspective, we’d suggest a little notch out in the acoustic guitar track at 174Hz. The F3 is just slightly dominant in that area. A boost centred around4.55-5kHz will add a little extra definition in that area and a cut of the top octave will make the percussiveness of the guitar just a little less dominant.
Not Another Timid Soul is a call to action. A reminder to the listener to take risks and be the best version of yourself. A warm and gentle acoustic track which we have no doubt truly endears Selina to her audience, especially in a live situation.