After impressing with the track “Retrieve” late last year, the NYC-based solo recording project of Jake J Brotter — V-Neck Sweater — is back with another quality couple of tracks. “Search Light” infuses a murky vocal presence and hypnotic guitar work to great effect, with synth flourishes adding to the nocturnal, contemplative soundscape.
Brotter elaborates on the track’s background below:
“This song was written in the aftermath of my mother’s unexpected passing a few months ago. In the days and weeks following, I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was trying to reach out to lift us back up, but that we (the sons and husband she left behind) were too far gone into the depths of our grief to feel her presence. The distant megaphone-filtered vocals, aquatic synths and lyrical content is meant to convey imagery of a search party on a mission to save a wreck out at sea.”
The track is released alongside instrumental effort “House of Grief,” which Brotter says “is built around a single-take improvised analog synth line that was recorded during a brief retreat to a cabin in the woods, where I had holed up with my wife and immediate family over the holidays in an effort to seclude ourselves in the days following our mother’s passing. It was a time of both intense pain and introspective healing, and the track is meant to convey that duality of pain and hope.”
