Sonja Midtune’s releases My Light

https://soundcloud.com/sonjamidtune/my-light-private/s-fpOGl

All artists aspire to make a music video that conveys the emotion of its source material as affectively and accessibly as possible, and that’s precisely what pop temptress Sonja Midtune does in “My Light,” her latest single and all-new video. I recently had the chance to preview “My Light” ahead of its much anticipated release, and was more than pleased with what it had to offer me as both a critic and a genuine fan of Midtune’s. Unlike a lot of her closest rivals, she went out of her way to make this video as real and tangible to us as she could, and instead of presenting us with a Hollywood-league pseudo-interpretation of her artistry and the content of her latest single, she gives us the unpolished, authentic work of art that we had all hoped she would.

“My Light” is built on the foundation of its wistful lyrics, which are well-reflected in the visuals and the music that they are packaged with in the video. As a single, this song reaches out to us using Dylan-esque strings which seem to emit harmonies that are endless and saturated with an organic reverb. The muscularity of the original mix is mostly preserved in the music video, and we’re able to feel the full force of Midtune’s cratering serenade as a result. She seems a lot more confident and relaxed here than she did in Post Love, and I think a lot of that has to do with the experience that she’s racked up in the last five years of developing her sound.

The instrumental prowess of this song is just as strong and commanding as Midtune’s domination of the microphone, and though her velvety vocals are the unforgettable crown jewel of “My Light,” the freewheeling guitars that hold them up are equally important to the deeper narrative here. It’s nice that I’m able to actually isolate each instrument in the master mix and differentiate where the melodies are being generated from; it’s become condemningly prevalent among pop singers to employ smokescreen-style mixes in their music to tone down the presence of synthesizers and other instrumental plasticity. Midtune isn’t following that trend (frankly, her music has no use for it), or any other for that matter, in creating a persona and sonic profile that is completely hers from top to bottom.

It’s not quite pop and it’s not quite folk-rock, but whatever you want to call “My Light,” you can’t deny that it’s an amazingly inspirational crossover piece that could make a nice home for itself on both cosmopolitan and pastoral playlists. Sonja Midtune has come a long way since Post Love, and she’s not squandering any time kicking off 2019 with a bang by releasing this very buzz-worthy single. I sincerely hope this isn’t the only cut from her latest studio sessions that she’ll be releasing this year, but if the momentum that she’s got at the moment continues to grow at the rate it has been, I don’t think she’ll have much of a choice but to deliver us another LP soon. She’s got a lot going for her right now, and it would be a shame to see her immense talents go unutilized.

YOU TUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pMK3UaUJBg#action=share

Michael Rand