Taste Test, Edition #24: Benedict Cork, Flawes, Marinho & more

Welcome to Taste Test, a review wrangling of SubmitHub-only gemstones.

“Fear of Lonely” by Benedict Cork

We can either take risks or remain stagnant. There are only two ways this life can go, and British singer-songwriter Benedict Cork leans into the former, despite a severe cloud of isolation following him around and casting nothing but grey about his feet. “I blame it on you,” he coos as the guitar foams up in lush colors and strikes a chord of overwhelming melancholy. The aftermath of a breakup haunts his imagination, and having relocated to a new city, knowing not a single soul, Cork pulls closer to his craft to soothe the rough edges. “Don’t wanna talk about it / Don’t wanna drink about it / Don’t wanna feel,” he sings. In turn, he melts away into a pastel world of muted emotions and the sobering reality, from which he may never escape.

“When We Were Young” by Flawes

Not to be confused with the Adele torch-ballad of the same name, Flawes’ “When We Were Young” engages with the age of nostalgia. As a society, one torn apart by TV show reboots and spinoffs and comebacks, we love reliving what the past has wrought, even if it comes at a price of our current state of mind. “I wasn’t dreaming of these worn out places,” sings Josh Carruthers, who attempts to wrangle every single decision he’s ever made in his life. Alongside band mates Freddie Edwards and Josh Hussey, the electronic trio examine their bones and the brittle wrinkles curling and feathering on their skin, sometimes wiggling in the past to understand who they are now. “I wish we knew what we become when we were young” rings out as a shot in the dark, piercing the present with a blade so icy thick. Even the electric guitar moans with a longing to turn back time, and while that is impossible, they might learn yet what it is to be alive.

“Ghost Notes” by Marinho

Filipa Marinho discovers new parts of herself in the dreamy soundscape only conjured by her acoustic guitar. Issued as her debut single, on International Women’s Day no less, “Ghost Notes” is a statement piece of not just womanhood but an examination of past, present and future lovers. “Dreams are the only place where my feelings survive,” she sings, a voice somber and weighted down by today’s ongoing struggle to be heard. But she soon finds relief that’s been buried deep within herself all along. Marinho is spooked by whispers of yesteryear, and she frames such unsettling notions between self-provoked absolution, jaggedly poetic. “All parts of me wanting to love you, they’ve fallen asleep,” she lets the words float as orbs out of her lips.

“Caroline” by Good Will Remedy

Sometimes, breakups are inevitable. Will Lebihan saw one coming a mile away, as a locomotive barreling down the tracks, smoke puffing out in monstrous creatures and hurling right up into the sky. “Caroline,” a sample of the band’s new EP, out later this year, is deceivingly chipper. Its shiny production, steeped in cool Americana and alt-rock roots, is a cathartic release, and Lebihan flicks his tongue to try to convince himself that what he’s about to do is the right move for everyone. Guitars and drums bounce and echo against one another, and underneath, a sorrowful tone ripples outward. “Write it on a cocktail napkin / Or write it one any wall / I’d hire a skywriter to write it all,” sings Lebihan, considering his options to get the very last say in the relationship. It’s both charmingly petty and satisfyingly triumphant.

“Past Life” by Ivy Mairi

The light prances across her eyes, reflecting back a soul that eerily reminds her of someone she once loved and loss. Ivy Mairi, culling her folk storytelling sensibility onto a new pop template, encounters a specter of the past in the form of a new lover. “They say lightning never strikes the same place twice / But we weren’t strangers when I met you / I know those eyes,” she confesses in layers of classically ’80s synths, shimmering shadows cast across her porcelain figure. “I was so deep already,” sings Mairi, whose voice carries with it a profound two-ton anvil. Even when her voice loops, as we are often destined to repeat history in many forms, she skitters just above the melody as a solo lighter waving ever so gently in the black of night. “Past Life” is one of many essentials from her new EP, Polarity, out now.

“The Water Song” by Melanie Jo

The ache is caught in the back of her throat. An enchanter defying physical boundaries, Melanie Jo clings to things she once thought to be true, as the world itself crumbles upon her well-intentioned touch. Change flows as a river tumbling down the mountainside, the tree line zipping past at a feverish rate, and Jo feels such a transition right down to her core. “Move with the wind / There’s no stopping this,” she sings, the arrangement whirling as a late winter’s breath across a barren wasteland. It’s the acceptance of things you can’t change that does her in; her voice remains razor-thin but possesses the ability to dissect with heavy precision. “I’m not as strong as I hoped I would be,” she concedes before the wind drags her away onto the horizon.

“Sailing Song” by Nicholas Mudd

A broken heart will make you do crazy things. A sea-faring wanderer, Americana troubadour Nicholas Mudd collects up each shard for an uncertain journey on raging seas. He’s ever at the mercy of the winds, which gush and heave into his sails, but his trek ultimately does little to assuage the pain throbbing in his chest. “Sailing Song,” which bookends Mudd’s new self-titled album, is a devastating story song lingering on the misery and instigating the listener to relive that dark part of themselves they long thought dead and gone. “But the girl I left behind / Lord, still she haunts my mind / She was the wildest storm I’ve ever known,” Mudd casts out his line for one last hope for survival. The final line, caked in dust, is as haunting and brutal as the heartbreak itself.

“Hologram” by Y the Ghost

Masculinity is a predominantly social construct ⏤ and a rather archaic one at that. Known only as Y the Ghost, the pop architect cobbles together a conversation on the very meaning of masculinity in the confines of sexuality and his own burgeoning defiance of tradition. “How do you want me?” he sings, turning to his lover to continue the fantasy on her terms rather than his. His voice is nearly always shrouded in distortion, almost reaching through from another wavelength altogether, but such a choice operates to foster a give and take on consent and the imprint on both parties. Synthetics are torn, rearranged and left to reemerge on their own, a life force now pulsating and thriving for another day. Y the Ghost wrecks mayhem as a way to understanding a greater design, further explored on his 2018 studio album, Can U Hear Me?.

“Winsome” by Luke De-Sciscio

The voice cracks. The blood drips down like diamonds. The sorrow scrapes in the dirt, and Luke De-Sciscio tracks his way back to where it all began ⏤ to process, to cope, to cherish, to be free. “Winsome,” off his new album Good Bye Folk Boy, only out on SoundCloud, tangles his skin and bones into a gasping being. “I’m my mother’s baby / I’m half-way crazy / Eternally-gifted and tirelessly-lazy / I’m matter in motion, my own most devoted,” labors De-Sciscio, added be acoustic guitar that gives him even more license to feel each wound open up again. The pitter-patter of rhythm invites him into a richer depth of his suppression of the past, the hollowed shells of peoples, times, places coming back to haunt him. A self-prescribed “diving-in point,” as he puts it, the song is both a needling puncturing his heart and a medication that’s a little too easy to swallow. In the end, he’s saved, and that’s really all that matters.

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