By Kavit Sumud | February 1st, 2013
Forced to describe artists that represent me in a nutshell, I’d say Woodkid would be right up there on that list. His music is never cathartic, and it feels like he psychologically never catches his breath. I doubt he’s had a full sigh of relief in years.
Woodkid seems like one of those people who constantly flirts with his fight-or-flight syndrome. And I love that about him — his music is more an aphoristic method of storing away anxious emotions than letting them spill out messily otherwise.
Woodkid has explored self-survival (“Run Boy Run“) and rebirth (“Wasteland“) in his previous tracks, always with a stalwart posture that seemed impossible to break through. But this is Woodkid vulnerable, if only for a few seconds at a time. It’s quite a feat to allow a quivering, veneer of strength to make its way into your songs; it helps me see myself in his songs in a very eerie way.
Woodkid achieves a lot of this by being so precise in his production. On “I Love You,” nary a note goes wasted, the strings are never cloying or cheap, and the percussion feels double-edged in its hyperventilating presence. The vocal chants come in at moments that punctuate the air like pulsating, clenched fists, while the bells feel like furiously shaking your head and the piano has a resigned feeling to its plodding nature.
This is a beauteous, little piece of orchestral pop. If you like this track, his debut album, The Golden Age, comes out on March 18, 2013; but you can preorder it on February 4 here and catch the official single then.