Establishing the mood with an ethereal synthscape, piano chords, strings, and crunching, ambient textures akin to footsteps marching, NIKOMIX opens A Quiet Soul with intrigue, dimensionality and a captivating vocal as he shares the lyrics, “The tea is cold on a kitchen wood, maps redrawn where we stood, broken treaties, silence sold, trading lives for a flicker of gold…”
The opus expands with pizzicato motifs and a heartbeat as we experience a tale of innocence caught in the crossfire of political unrest. There is a real cinematic and onomatopoeic quality to the arrangement. It balances melancholia lounge-pop with dystopian textures.
The poetic prowess is really tangible and the message and intention of the song feel super zeitgeist – it’s what a lot of us are experiencing in the face of so much turmoil right now and for that we are grateful to NIKOMIX. The rising Danish artist has truly put a voice to our collective emotions. Lines like, “No banner, no name, no winner’s game…” feel particularly poignant. There is a spiritually cathartic thread here too, inviting us to look beyond borders, ideologies and power struggles, and reconnect with our shared humanity.
The production is entirely DIY with Nikolaj Dalsgaard writing, producing, mixing and mastering the track himself, alongside directing its accompanying music video which brings to life the message of the song very literally.
The real goosebump moment arrives during the raw 30-second guitar solo. It feels like an important analogue moment that builds with defiant intensity before giving way to Abraham Lincoln’s historic Gettysburg Address. Hearing the words “of the people, by the people, for the people…” emerge at the climax is rather epic and has us on the verge of tears.
For sync placements, A Quiet Soul could fit into films like The Zone of Interest, Children of Men, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, Hotel Rwanda, The Kite Runner and The Pianist. On television, we can imagine it in a show like The Handmaid’s Tale, Years and Years, Chernobyl, The Last of Us or Black Mirror.
Needless to say, we are obsessed, and have added A Quiet Soul to our New Music Spotlight playlist, and our TIMELESS and TRIPPY playlists, whilst we continue to stream NIKOMIX‘s debut single, 03.17 and anticipate future releases from the intentional artist.