Thilda U was here pretty recently, only a month or so ago but I’m giving her a second run because she really got my attention with her debut single ‘The Rain’, last time out, a song I noted for, inter alia, its snappy melody and subtle orchestration.
And there’s plenty more of that in ‘Color’ (I’ll defer to her American spelling), a song about the feeling of being replaced. The storyline here is that another person’s priorities are not what they used to be and you are not as important anymore.
She doesn’t mean being fired off from work, rather from a relationship and she conjures up a picture of a knot in the stomach which pushes you to do everything in your power to rectify the situation.
According to the telecoms company Orange, in their advertising many moons ago ‘The future’s bright; the future’s Orange’ and Thilda seems to think so too, judging from her graphic which accompanies the release. She’s even surrounded by oranges. That got me thinking. What does orange signify, in the way yellow suggests cowardice, green envy, red anger and blue love?
It suggests enthusiasm and excitement apparently, and I have to say those qualities do pervade the recording.
I noted with ‘The Rain’, which is a paean to the Italian Riviera,that it had a 1960s/70s feel to it and Thilda perpetuates that style here, straight from the start in fact with opening guitar notes that could be a remnant of The Shadows or The Tornados. There’s even a reference, if I heard it correctly, to “that sixties scene.”
She generates the power in her voice that used to be commonplace in that era but is sadly all too often absent these days.
The singer she reminds me most of here is Dusty Springfield, possibly the UK’s #1 female vocalist of all time and a comparison that’s not made just like that. But I also hear Alison Moyet in there, too. Musically there are all sorts of little tricks in play, some of them Motown-related and with Spector-like orchestration courtesy of producer Daniel Harley Hedberg.
It’s a glorious little tour de force like you took off in a time machine on a journey through a couple of decades of the best of contemporary music.
If there’s to be another 60s revival I think I know who will be at the forefront of it. The girl from Lund.
The EP ‘A Letter from Rimini’ will be released in the autumn.
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thildauknow/
