There’s another post going out at the same time as this one, for the Danish composer IB, who has concocted a giant instrument made out of stainless steel bowls and dishes.
For a moment, as this song gets going, I thought he’d licensed then to This Boy and tuned them as well.
But it turns out it’s a song of many parts, slightly hip-hoppish and with an African rhythm and assorted effects, and vocal stylisation that Papa Wemba and Youssou N’Dour respectively would have been proud of.
Sometimes I ramble on about a distinctive Danish sound that is emerging and this is an example of it. They may not actually be there intentionally but I hear elements of Lydmor for example in this composition and also those of the Swedish-South African, Stellar Explorer. (Not to mention Ed Sheeran but we’ll pass on that).
And you don’t expect an instrumental bridge and outro from an ethnic mandolin on any old song, do you?
It’s a classy little number all round, proof that different ethnic styles can indeed ‘fuse’ effectively. In this case there is choir from both Denmark and Africa.
Lyrically, the song is about “taking the leap, and giving yourself over to another being,” and the imagery takes the form of letting yourself get folded and shaped like the paper in ‘Origami’. Of course you should beware the paper cuts but that’s another story.
A love story with an edge, as they say, and ever so slightly edgy. For example,
“This might be a heist/It might be the end of me
But I’ve finally found the one/Who’s making it easy
To feel like I’m innocent/I’m a storm but in her hands
I’m paper when it folds/A single flake of snow”.
What exactly are we to make of that? Someone with the knack of putting a wild boy at his ease or one who has the ability to manipulate a snowflake?
This Boy is Magnus Tophøj and Sebastian Owens, who have been friends since childhood. Early in their friendship they discovered their common interest in music, which evolved into a little home studio and later a career side by side as producers and songwriters.
‘Origami’ is released on 22/03/2024 and is the fifth single from the This Boy duos forthcoming album ‘E.T’, who, I guess, will be ‘phoning home on his origami cell phone.
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