Vancouver (Canada) artist WiL has just released his latest single, I’m Sorry. We’ve had the pleasure of a good long listen here at the Send Me Your Ears studio today.
I’m Sorry is taken from WiL’s sixth studio album, The Gold Mine – out now on all digital and streaming platforms. WiL is a new artist to us, but has clearly been building up quite the back catalogue over the years. Seemingly known best for his acoustic guitar based songs, I’m Sorry takes WiL in a totally different direction with a simple and ethereal piano based tune which we found to be hauntingly beautiful.
There’s some fantastic use of reverbs on the whole track. The drums at the start feel suitably distant, with a great use of reverb on both the piano and the vocals. Enough to make the track have an almost live feel to it.
There’s the occasional synth notes and ambient super saw sounding pad (perhaps?). The song develops gently and some seascape type sounds come in (perfect for a song from Vancouver!) together with that beautiful acoustic guitar playing that WiL is known best for.
The song builds with the sound effects and acoustic guitar until dropping back down to almost nothing again for the second verse. WiL is really taking you on a journey here and the rise and fall is wonderful.
As instrumentation is added, the song remains gentle and simple. Every instrument is given plenty of space to shine and has its own space in the EQ spectrum.
WiL’s voice is just gorgeous! The warmth in his vocal and the quality and control in his falsetto notes are an absolute joy to behold. We thoroughly loved this gentle ballad and will be keeping an eye out for more from WiL, for sure.
I’m Sorry reminds the listener that we all have bad days. Everyone should know how to say that all important “I’m Sorry” and WiL is here to remind us just how far an apology can travel.
We were really drawn to the breakdown section of this song, with long droning single notes on strings with WiL’s warm and gentle vocals taking centre stage.
The song leaves as gently as it begins, with a long note on high strings to accentuate and close. This is a simply beautiful, calm love song.
From a production perspective we would suggest a gentle dip in the vocal track around 450-550Hz and also at 1-2kHz. There’s just a tiny bit of honk and nasality, not in the voice itself, but in the way that the mic has picked up the vocals. We’d also suggest a boost around 3-4kHz to make the track a little more present and finally, to bring some brightness and definition into the track consider a wide shelf boost of the top 2 octaves
WiL’s I’m sorry, is a gentle, heartfelt ballad that reminds the listener of the power of those two words. The song is smooth, well crafted and well written and we feel this has great potential for consideration for a sync deal for TV or similar. There’s something about this style of music that music supervisors are just eating up right now. We simply can’t wait to hear more from this talented Vancouver Singer-Songwriter.