--Ada Wofford
Old Trees, out of Roswell, Georgia recently stunned us with their new single, “Velvet Moonlight.” Consisting of just two members, Zach Watson (singer/songwriter) and Diego Hermoza (engineer), Old Trees is a dream pop act that manages to perfectly balance the shiny with the fuzzy. Watson told me they recorded this track in one night, using little more than a Yamaha keyboard and Ableton Live, over a whopping 74 tracks of audio.
The track, like a lot of dream pop, has a spaced-out lullaby feel to it—slow and swirling but catchy at the same time. The verse melody flirts dangerously close to being compared to Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You” but nevertheless, it withholds a character all its own. Screechy keys and reverberated drums sketch a backdrop upon which ethereal vocals shimmer and shine. You can hear an influence of mid-aughts Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear throughout but my favorite part of the track is the sudden shift into a Strawberry Fields Forever-inspired organ bridge that not only shifts the song tonally but emotionally as well, imbuing new life and energy into a track that would have otherwise grown stale, being over four minutes long. Overall, “Velvet Moonlight” is a beautiful track and I can’t wait to hear a full length LP from Old Trees.
If you’re into dream pop at all you’ll love “Velvet Moonlight” you can listen to the track here via Soundcloud or listen via YouTube below.
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