By Keith Walsh
It’s only occasionally that an electronic music album like this hits my ears. Last month, Sonum Unum, an electronic music duo from Massachusetts released their debut album, Signals From The Sun, and it’s a thing of sonic beauty.
It’s no wonder that Negative Gain Productions reportedly signed the project after hearing only one song.
Combining classic songwriting skills using melancholy progressions and introspective lyrics, the songwriting/performance/production duo of Craig Douglas and Michael Goldberg, spent the last months of 2022 and the first months of 2023 exchanging files, resulting in the stunning 10 track set.
Using smooth synthetic sounds that don’t buzz or rattle, Sonum Unum create multilayered electronic sounds that reveal a sonic kinship to bands as diverse as Boards Of Canada, Pink Floyd and even The Beach Boys. I can’t imagine any of this hitting the top ten, but that’s the point. These songs come at you from a different angle. The lyrics, melodies and textures all work their ways into your brain in complex, compelling ways. The opener “Rescue” features gorgeous vocal harmonies and soft mellow pads of sound and a brooding pace.
“I know we’re fading out forever underneath/Away from everyone/I know the way out seems unable to achieve/the lost will follow signals from the sun/Calling off the rescue/I don’t need anyone to wake me up/only living for today/I just need someone to try….” From “Rescue”
Bittersweetness is the dominant flavor here. “Surrender” is a confessional tune that finds the protagonist shedding the pride that once held him back. “Seasons” is a poignant reflection on the search for meaning. All of these tunes feature soft textures with electronic blips that don’t irritate, but rather melt into the tender washes of melody and percussion.
“Empty Spaces” brings back more of those precise, lovely vocal harmonies, in a song about finding meaning in forgiveness, with an upbeat chorus. “Know It All” is an honest admission of one’s fallibility in a quest for home. It builds to a gorgeous refrain loaded with reflection and wisdom, not unlike something by the awesome (though oft misguided) Roger Waters of Pink Floyd.
I have got to find my way/I have got to find my home/I thought I knew it all/but I wea a know it all/I didn’t know what was going on/did you? From “Know It All”
“Misinteraction,” titled with a meaningful new word apparently coined by Sonum Unum, is a self-aware musing on the need to heal and make compromises with reality. “Existence” finds the protagonist facing his mortality while devoting his love to someone apparently very special. There’s a lovely minimalism here. “Snow Days” is the most upbeat song on the disc, with grooving bass movement, while the fast tempo allows Douglas and Goldberg to be optimistic for a minute, in the service of a belief in dreams and fantasies.
This is an album about evaluating the past, our p lace in making the world we live in, and searching for new ways to adapt. “Take Me Away” is darker, with a sense of being trapped in darkness and a pulsing beat and an anthemic chorus.
“Take me away/I’ll never find a way to make you face me/Take me away/You always find a way to devastate me/Take me away from this tonight” From “Take Me Away”
“Holding On Forever” reminds me one of Peter Gabriel’s ballads as well as Pink Floyd again, but this time something sweetly yet guardedly optimistic by Dave Gilmour. Just like Pink Floyd, Sonum Unum are possessed by finding the cure for the emotional and existential conditions that trouble our lives. And like all songwriters of their caliber, Douglas and Goldberg find that words and music are capable of bridging the space between us, at least for now.
Signals From The Sun is an album loaded with lyrical insights and subtle sounds that reflect a sincere communicative strategy. Sonum in Latin has various meanings, from ‘noise’ to ‘sound,’ ‘cry,’ ‘clang,’ and ‘cackle.’ Sonum Unum means roughly “the sound of one.” Appropriately, times of reflective solitude, heavily represented in themes on the album, are when awareness and growth occur. Artistic merit is on full display on Signals From The Sun, but that doesn’t preclude the possibility of radio play. Far from it. Sonum Unum are messengers needed in our time, gently calling us to look inward rather than be seduced by the all to frequent distractions of the day.
Sonum Unum On Bandcamp
Negative Gain Productions
Negative Gain YouTube
Sonum Unum YouTube
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