Captain is the recording project of Cornwall’s Tilda Lindsey. Lindsey makes an ethereal strain of folk that feels rooted in the British coastline, sometimes hazy, sometimes foggy and often understated, moments of bright clarity appearing at irregular intervals, burning through the sea mist to provide ephemeral light. Elsewhere there are greater extremes—waves more fierce, waters more blue—but in its temperate nature, Captain’s music provides a special emotion of its own, dreamy and strange without losing its constant, wistful warmth.
‘Hotel Room’ is exhibit A in backing this up, the vocals airy and fuzzy, rising in steady cadence and tethered to earth by nothing beyond the constant rhythm of the guitar. Lyrically, the track is tacit, pushing numerous snippets of unclear imagery that add up to something almost sensory, recognisable in shape and weight if not directly. Because this is a placid love song for indistinct summer times, where days and dates blur into one, a memory melted into tactile sensations of heat on skin and hazy sunshine.
“Could I be new, you are in a hotel
Reaching me in the summer night swell
Meet me at the top of the road
Head on down whilst it’s still warm on our backs
You are what every night lacks”
