Nowhere Blue (Sweden) – I can see your heart (single)

It’s a title that reminded me of James’ ‘Sometimes’ and the classic line “Sometimes, when I look in your eyes I can see your soul”; one of the all-time greats and it takes some doing to paint a picture like that. Even the Romantic Poets would have struggled to come up with a line that profound.

Can Nowhere Blue match it? Can they create a narrative in which you can believe they have those X-ray specs?

I have to admit to having been blindsided by the advice that their sound is “similar to that of Radiohead and Sigur Rós.” I know little of Radiohead; they always seemed a little too academic for me, like they were trying to demonstrate a physical experiment through music, while I went right off the Icelanders when I saw that terrible interview they gave when they tries to take the piss out of the interviewer.

Not exactly a great start then but fear not, this song stands alone, without reference to any highfalutin experimental band.

‘I can see your heart’ is lush, inviting, enticing soft electronica over a devastatingly simple piano melody which has the stamp of Coldplay through it, if anyone. The effect of that electronic arrangement and the accompanying vocals that seem to melt into it makes me think of (apologies if you’ve read this analogy before) that scene in the film ‘Contact’ when the Jodie Foster astronaut is tricked into thinking she meets her deceased dad on a beach on the planet Zog in a distant galaxy.

You know how the image ebbs and flows so that nothing is quite what it seems. This has a similar effect.

And yes, I suppose you can imagine being able to pick a heart out of that jumble of images.

I can’t tell you much about Nowhere Blue other than that they are a duo from Stockholm fronted by pianist Leon Ogunro and their lead vocalist Leo Barata (who looks like a teenage Liam Gallagher in a hoodie). Most of their website pages wouldn’t open up and I can only locate them on Instagram.

So for now they’ll have to remain the International Men of Mystery.

Find them on:

Website: https://nowhereblue.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nowhere_blue/