West Coast sing-songwriter Sam Valdez brings us more retro road trip music with her new single ‘Farther Away,’ released in preparation for her ‘Mirage’ EP, due at the end of June. Valdez stands out amongst her dream-pop peers of Lana Del Ray, Angel Olsen, The War on Drugs and Alexandra Savior with her compelling lyrics and haunting vocals.
This latest song is one of a few wistful tunes from the young artist, rich with dreamy vocals and lightly swinging percussion, as found in earlier tracks ‘It’s Alright,’ ‘Hours’ and ‘I Don’t Want to be Yours Anymore.’ ‘Farther Away’ takes this aesthetic to another level. It is an emotional and sincere song about the unexpected and disorientating nature of life, with lyrics that paint pithy pictures of long nights spent adrift in ‘vacant minds.’
The track opens with gentle percussion and twangy guitar, that seductively moves into chord led hooks and breathy verses. Ebbing instrumentals and reverb-drenched guitar give the tune a vintage noir feel – it’s romantic with a dash of hopeless. The instrumental arrangement is swirling and elegant, emphasizing the velvety quality of Valdez’s rich voice. This song is languid and ethereal but manages to remain less cabaret than other popular dream pop.
The release of ‘Farther Away’ was accompanied with an equally as candid music video where Valdez wanders through a desert, outlined poetically against a darkening sky. Although slow-motion walking through an abandoned landscape with a sparkler is nothing original, the tone and sentiment of the video perfectly mirror the western soundscape of the song. Valdez’s upbringing in the Nevada desert clearly plays a heavy influence in the making of the music video and the track.
Valdez embodies the very best of shoegaze rock and indie Americana folk music in this latest instalment, and the forthcoming EP is the ideal companion to a sunset on cool summer nights.