Arthur Beatrice: “Grand Union”

There’s a certain kind of melancholy that the sounds of a piano working recall for me. Not the sound the string makes, but the soft *cak* of the keys being played and the pedals being pressed and depressed. Arthur Beatrice foreshadow the mood of their latest single “Grand Union” with 15 seconds of this sort of hushed piano-work before the rhythm section comes in.

With alternating dual choruses of “Like steel, it’s so devastating when you feel / You’re all above / And you’re not in love” and “Dead lungs, you’re becoming someone else’s tongue / Coughing up blood, skin coming off”, Orlando Leopard’s subtle English accent delivers a stone of vague sensation of longing and hearthache directly onto the listener’s chest. The lyrics are a little too oblique to really suss out any narrative, but you get the sense that “Grand Union” is loaded with sad sarcasm.

The whole affair strikes me as not unlike your eyes adjusting to a darkened room. Each successive musical movement adds a layer until you can’t remember how empty and void your field of vision used to be. Inky blackness turns to grey. The grey becomes tinted with an increasing variety of colors and that’s when you realize the song’s just ended and you’re alone again.

Their Carter EP came out earlier this year and this single is in advance of their debut album scheduled to land stateside sometime early next year.