Brighter Later – The Wolves

We, as music nerds, could easily agree on this: you either have to own a remarkable sound-system and/or a good pair of headphones. Otherwise, some music will always fail to impress you, cause it’s not designed for cheap plastic sounds. In the case of BRIGHTER LATER‘s debut record The Wolves I’d stick to the headphones right away, cause this is something you have to experience on your own, yes, maybe even isolated from your environment. This beautiful piece of music by australian singer/songwriter Jaye Kanz and her musical partner Virginia Bolt certainly needs it’s time and space to reveal what it ties together: reduced poetry and smart, folky dream-pop with a charming aura of analogue love.

Whilst Jaye Kanz – you might call her the brain behind this project – was planning to take a hiatus from making music, she couldn’t help being creative in any other way possible, which meant at that time: being a writer. Originally stemming from Melbourne but stranded in New Orleans, she fortunately somehow found back to making music on her own, inspired by some of her greatest listening-pleasures at that time, which included familiar names like GRIZZLY BEAR, BEACH HOUSE and BON IVER. Although it might have not been planned, you actually get relatively close to The Wolves by hybridizing these influences.

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All The World starts the journey with a kind of ambient intro, leading into the playful, dreamy folk-tune The Woods. And what a cuddly chorus-melody this piece settles right into the quiet; you won’t get rid of it for a while. At this point already one notices, that the instrumentation seems far more diversified than one might think considering the fact that BRIGHTER LATER ultimately is a project of Kanz writing the songs and Bolt contributing bass, backing vocals and few arrangements – the result sounds impressively rhich anyway, but in a kind and humble sense. It’s quite clear why the dream-pop-sticker has been put onto this music: the uncertainty of nighttime, the state in which you can’t recall if you’re asleep or wake; that is the place where these songs seem to be coming from. A calming in-between. Needless to say, it’s always difficult for this kind of music to keep the listener in line throughout the whole album and there are indeed a few lenghts or nowheres, too. Nonetheless, The Wolves got an overall intimidating sense of beauty and in it’s strongest moments, like the otherwordly poppy Come and Go, you even get close to the presence of beloved swede ANNA TERNHEIM.

“I will wake you in the season / I will whisper while you sleep/ there is nothing out there” we hear Kanz whispering in The Woods alongside multi-layered tunes and infrequent beats. In these moments, it’s the often reduced but effective lyricism that reveals the writer behind the voice. Happily for all of us, BRIGHTER LATER has been chosen as the main vehicle for Kanz’ creativity, so that The Wolves impresses as a gentle musical experience with profound songwriting. Certainly one for the day-dreaming bed-people out there, so get some new headphones and go on searching for the details in this little beauty, it’s definitely worth the time!

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BRIGHTER LATER