Joseph Sant is a dream pop musician based in Brooklyn, originally from Seattle; and his new EP, Sea White Salt, reflects his life spent in coastal cities. It is undeniable Sant’s sound is indebted to the Brooklyn music scene and its constituents, but he doesn’t worship nor put his home on a pedestal. In fact, there lingers a faint sense of cynicism and ambivalent melancholy towards Williamsburg and the surrounding, gentrified neighborhoods. Even the studio in which was the EP was recorded was evicted shortly afterwards due to the real estate market; thus, these songs are the result of a turbulent mixture of emotions and circumstances like the intense weather his allegorical lyrics embody.
There is a heavily impressionistic attitude towards songs like “Horse At The Beach,” with guitar leads barely audible as they float past in the background, but Sant is far from the limping-along feebleness of so much of this genre. There’s a moody tempestuousness that bubbles just beneath the surface, giving songs such as “Nor’easter” a brooding sense of anxiety. It’s so difficult to stand out from the crowd in indie pop these days, but Joseph Sant has cast himself a defiantly original voice. Sea White Salt is out January, 14th.
