It is only natural with the warmth of the season hitting its heights, with the urge to be outdoors, and thoughts of days at the beach and barbeques in the backyard high on everyone’s minds that such thoughts find their way into the music being made. Clay Joule is certainly, not immune to the effects of such influences and the result is the rather cool (pun intended) new track “Summer Breeze”.
It’s a track that rocks along with big drums and cascades of piano, driving bass pulses and some solid guitar work, not to mention the voice heads for the high notes and keyboards that wander and wash through the spaces between. In short, it’s anthemic! It’s big, buoyant and life-affirming, everything that you need from a seasonal soundtrack.
We’ve seen singing drummers before, everyone from the iconic Don Henly to the cultish Joseph Porter, so Clay Joule is in good company indeed. I first came across Clay Joule with the release of the previous single “Funky Sphere”, a tribute and dedication to those workers of the air who kept travel open across America and beyond during the difficult lockdown era. “Summer Breeze” has the fame celebratory feeling and I get the feeling that there is a positivity running through the artist that can’t but help colour his songs. That is certainly the case here.
And, like all music releases today, it comes with a visual enhancement, that is, a neat video to help turn the words and musical feeling into images. This it does perfectly, an array of images of road trips through the heat haze, romantic walks on the beach, friends gathering to celebrate and socialize and, of course, the titular breeze blowing through proceedings and adding cool and calm to all it touches.
Musically too, it has it all, from dynamic and dramatic drums to form a busy and bustling platform, basslines that drive and tether the song to the groove and pounding piano which acts more as percussion than melody, again creating added impetus as the song fires along. And then, as we enter the last minute of this short and to-the-point song, the sound palette widens to accommodate big, electric guitar solos, rock inclusions which muscle up what is essentially an infectious pop song and spiralling keyboard riffs that keep the song in the contemporary sound arena. It is a sound that is both cool and hot…if you know what I mean.
And it isn’t just me saying that, like “Funky Sphere” before it, the various charts and radio playlists are also thinking the same, ensuring that this is a song that is going to be heard everywhere you go, a real soundtrack to the summer.
So, Clay Joule has done it again, he has created something that is as infectious as it is creative, which hops genres taking what it needs from each and every sound and style to build its own unique sonic identity and which is going to sit well with every listener, no matter what your prefered musical taste. In short, it is fun, and isn’t that what summer should be about?
