I’ve only encountered Heddy Edwards’ music a handful of times, the first being “Black Tunnel,” which opens this, her debut EP, but right from the off, I knew it was my kind of music. Although this opening number has been out there for a couple of years now, it remains a good place to start for anyone wishing to explore the music she has made since she was inspired to return to songwriting after a ten-year break.
In it, you get a glimpse, more than a glimpse, a demonstration, a master class perhaps, of her ability to mix the mellifluous and melodic with bigger, denser rock energies. And as full-on as the sonic peaks of this song are, there is always a dreamy-pop heart balancing force at work.
“The Other Side of Town” sees this dream-pop attitude take full control, a drifting blend of ambient haze and nighttime atmospherics, and the perfectly titled “Cinematic Vision” is a bridge between the previous songs’ shimmering pop stance and the opener’s unmissable groove.
“Fever, Can Believe It” is the only song I haven’t heard before, but it fits in perfectly with everything else here; a more dance-infused beat, but a song that crackles with peaks of sonic energy and runs on an infectious alt-pop vibe, and “Dreamcast” is a more conventional dream-pop array, with the emphasis very much on the word pop.
It is easy to see the past references and themes at work in Edwards music – 90’s rock and 80’s filmic pop, soundtracks and cinematics, the drift and the dreamlike, the shimmer and the sheen, the deft and delicate – but you would never say that her music harks back to earlier times, at least not consciously. Rather, it is the sound of such past glories finding a way to live on, move with the times, and become part of the here-and-now, and, in doing so, help shape an intriguing pop future.
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