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Woven together out of soft, textured melodies and a tempered poeticism that could be interpreted in a couple of different ways, you could say that “If It Takes Your Breath Away” from Free Your Self is definitely one of the more cathartic songs the singer/songwriter has released under this present moniker so far and I would absolutely agree with you. However, in terms of what makes this track such a freeing piece of material, I think it’s not quite as easy to break down what drives the narrative home with as much moxie as it’s afforded here.
Through vocal skill and pure poetic wit of the most versatile variety, Free You Self touches on a mixture of millennial bohemianism and rustic Americana at a moment when the two aesthetics have never felt as irreconcilably separated, and for this I believe he deserves a great deal of credit. “If It Takes Your Breath Away” is a step towards enlightenment for this player, and to some of his fans, I think it’s going to sound like the most credible assertion of artistic merit he’s ever put his name on.
There’s a very folky feel to the melody in the instrumentation, but I think it’s fair to say that nothing in the detail-oriented arrangement of this single is really easy to categorize by conventional critical standards. It’s obvious that a meticulous hand was behind the creation of the mix and specifically the production style as it was applied to the artsy music video for the song, but I don’t get a self-righteous vibe at any point here.
The video is surreal but ultimately a rather homespun document, feeding into the neo-hippie influences in the harmony but not taking us directly into the somewhat dreaded realm of ‘throwback’ pop. The beat is probably the most charming element of the backend, if not a reluctant hero to the lyrical design, and while it might seem a little sluggish at first I think it was necessary to slow the music – and us – down in order to put as big an exclamation point on the mood as possible.
If this is just a sneak peek of what Free Your Self is going to be making an entire career out of in the next few years, I don’t think there will be much of a fight to win favor with an audience all his own before a lot of his similarly inexperienced contemporaries do. He’s showing a lot of rebelliousness in these early recordings that I can’t wait to hear him expound upon with his next release, and if you haven’t listened “If It Takes Your Breath Away” or seen its music video this fall season, you need to make a point of doing so immediately. Fans of eclectic acoustic music can’t go wrong with what this singer/songwriter is looking to make for himself in this single, and with a bit more time and room to grow his craft the right way, he could prove to be a very popular face in his scene as the decade unfolds.
by Bethany Page
