The guitar opens the track with delays catching the string noise. The synths swells at the back outline the mood. A second guitar comes in with an innocent sounding melody. The chord movement remains the same until the kick enters and the song develops. More sounds come in.
This is Clemency by Dae Kim, a minimalist groovy track that is driven by the guitar. Later on, there is a guitar part that get harmonised. Was that John Mayer if he were a guitar part? Nah – it’s something else. More synths come in, a texture of contrapuntal synths fill up the space.
The original melody comes in later but now with more things happening in the song. The B section comes in and it slowly develops. It’s about to go somewhere and it goes back down.
The guitar fades out and the kick disappears just before that.
The question is who receives Clemency here?
Who is forgiven and what was the sin/crime?
The meditative repetitive guitar part – is that like a prayer or a mantra?
All in all, this is the kind of music that we probably need right now. In a world where the manic panic pace of invisible sickness spooks us, we probably should all listen to something that calms, develops and returns to calmness.
In a way, this track could be a good way to view all the weirdness in the world today (regardless when it was written or recorded).
TLDR: If you like ambient chill vibes with spaced out guitar, check out this latest track from Dae Kim.
Rating: 4/5
You can listen to the track here:
Spotify
Apple Music
[About Dae Kim]
Dae Kim is a music composer, multi-instrumentalist and filmmaker (born 1993 in Seoul, Korea) residing in the city of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. His composition typically revolves around soundscapes of electronica and ambient music which he mainly utilises key-based instruments ranging from different synthesisers and rhodes. As he continues to expand his palate of different soundscapes, Dae Kim has recently incorporated guitar and accordion into his compositions. Much alike to artist such as Vangelis, Ennio Moriconne and Nils Frahm, Dae Kim shares similar ambience with his usage of orchestration and synthesisers. Noteworthy for his versatility in creating songs of various genre, Dae Kim’s compositions consist of rich emotions, thrusting drums patterns and quirky scratching techniques that embedded his characteristic through each song.
Since his early years in Malaysia, music has always played a major part in his life. He release an EP entitled “ </3?!” in 2015 which opened many doors of opportunities for him to explore deeper in his musical journey. Ranging from scoring to composing for artists such as Jin Hackman and Stemilyn, Dae Kim later got in touch with Mü-nest’s founder, Wei. And since then the album was an on-going collaboration for a span of two years.
His first LP entitled “Solace” is available for streaming and purchase.
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