savedhistory is an ambient project based in Manilla. Described as a collection of songs written in “my bedroom and in places I’ve never been,” new EP distantly speaking in the language of silence explores the relationship between the known and unknown through hazy textures and immersive moods. The result is something paradoxically familiar yet unknowable, tangible in the way dreams have a palpable shape and weight. A manifestation of a reality that hasn’t yet come to pass.
But running alongside this is a sense of melancholy too. For every dream is counterbalanced by a sense of loss and longing, a mourning for what does not exist. After tender opener ‘soft gestures’ introduces the savedhistory sound with its slow style and whispered vocals, ‘within me’ charts the depth of this sadness. Ostensibly about the loss of something once held, the track pushes beyond the specificity of any given moment, serving as a elegy not only for the past but the unrealised future too. The places you’ll never visit, the people you’ll never meet.
i wish i could tear these thoughts away
listen to the voices (it’s calling for you)
is this existence?
around me i see,
lost and falling
running and hiding
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There’s an urgency to ‘everyone else seems to have left’ that pushes beyond stereotype, casting loneliness as something desperate and consuming. There are vocals to the track but nothing you can quite parse, the voice unable to cut through the swirling noise. Closer ‘trying’ adds a newfound depth, the steady drum beat ironing the ambient tones into a sense of forward motion. It might not be enough to break free of the cloudy soundscape, but it feels like a possible beginning—an attempt to confront the tension at the heart of things, be it through keeping up or letting go.
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distantly speaking in the language of silence is out now and available from the savedhistory Bandcamp page.