A hypnotic pull in tastefully architected layers. A sweetness in the affectation-less but also terribly affective utterances. An overall dimension of wanderlust.
Bobbi Olvido can carry a tune.
No, he can lift a tune.
Actually, strike that.
He can prop a tune on his head like a titanium bike frame while ambling along a throng of rush-hour orcs, heroic not for the illusion of difficulty but the reality of ease.
He’s comfortable in his own musical skin; he can revisit an old tune and look at it with fresh eyes: eyes that can look past the false start, that can shrug off a backstory of non-consummation.
Bobbi can make it work, and make it work he does in Kubra Commander’s much-anticipated new single: “Safety,” a once-shelved tune from 2013 that came about from his initial dalliances with his first synthesizer.
“I was heavily into electronic music back then, and it was the first song I wrote using [the instrument],” he says, adding, by way of thematic explainer, “It explores [themes of] bliss in solitude.”
Made from a heady vat of musical vibes, moods, and gestures informed by acts like Postal Service, MGMT, Phantogram, and Pedicab, among others, “Safety” is a two-chord, two-movement, one-two-punch banger with a predilection for sunshine.
There is a hypnotic pull in its tastefully architected layers; a sweetness in the affectation-less but also terribly affective utterances; and an overall dimension of wanderlust, not in a cheesy travel-show sense, but in a way that prods you to explore metaphysical, interplanar translocation.
OK, that was a mouthful.
All I’m trying to say, really, is “Safety” is the tune you spin to wriggle you out of a funk.
Originally crafted for a solo project called Space/Walk, Olvido proceeded to wade through the rubble and “resurrect the song” via original stems. He then rerecorded the vocals, rerecorded a whole bunch of synth and guitar, and topped it off with acoustic drums care of Jeremy Rigodon, who also gets co-producer credit.
“Being a more synth-heavy track, [I would say] it’s a break from the usual,” Bobbi says, adding that the enterprise involved a delicate see-saw between going for an electronic approach and not eschewing acoustic instrumentation altogether.
“From a personal standpoint, [this is] a throwback to the indie-electronic music that influenced me back in the early 2010s,” he shares.
That balance is, in fact, achieved to great effect, with the acoustic guitar layers in particular – to my ears at least – providing a poetic cushioning to the quantized machinations going on elsewhere.
“Safety” is not so much a song but an idea. Ideas are always better.