Sol

The warmest entry in Tale of Us's typically melancholic catalog, "Sol" earns its solar title through sound design that actually suggests warmth and light in a discography more often characterized by shadow. Pads are brighter, less reverb-soaked, sitting forward in the mix with unusual presence. The rhythmic foundation feels more celebratory than their usual restrained propulsion, kick drums hitting with something approaching joy. Melodic content is more clearly resolved — actual harmonic landing rather than the perpetual suspension they typically favor. There is a Mediterranean quality here that their other work keeps at arm's length: the specific relationship to summer that their Italian cultural context makes available. The track moves through its duration with the ease of a day that has decided to be good — problems exist but have receded to irrelevance in the face of sufficient warmth and light. Best suited to outdoor settings, afternoon sun, the uncomplicated pleasure of existing in the right place at the right temperature. An anomaly in their output that reveals what the darker work is the absence of.