Bathe Alone’s “Calm Down” casts a dreamlike soundscape with its ethereal vocal presence and alternation between quaint guitars and expanding vigor. Bailey Crone’s lush vocals are accompanied by a burgeoning rhythms section and shimmering guitar tones to start. The two-minute mark onward features evolving guitar-based textures, eventually joined by the caressing vocal presence. Dream-pop and shoegaze elements are at play throughout this gripping track, a thorough success for Atlanta-based Bailey Crone’s project Bathe Alone. Described as “a concept piece full of subliminal sonic metaphors for panic attacks,” the track’s tonal variety is rich and consuming.
Crone elaborates more on the track below:
“‘Calm Down’ isn’t just a song, it’s a concept piece full of subliminal messages and sonic metaphors for panic attacks. Panic attacks are something I’ve struggled with for the better part of 5 years and each one feels as real as the first. It’s not something you get used to. Something I wanted to convey in the song is that panic attacks aren’t an “on/off” sort of thing. There’s no switch. There’s a ramp up period as well as a ramp down period. The guitar melodies do a lot of descending and ramping up/screaming as if you’re in the peak of an attack. The drums never quit the entire time, and bring this sense of adrenaline that one feels during an attack or even simmering right before an attack. And at the end of the song, the whole things gets quieter and quieter and brings the listener on a journey with to experience a sense of peace and calm. This was the song I made that made me realize I could make an entire album about mental health awareness.”
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“Calm Down” and other memorable tracks from this month can also be streamed on the updating Obscure Sound’s ‘Best of February 2020’ Spotify playlist.
The track is also featured in the genre-based, best-of Spotify compilation Emerging Dream-Pop.
