“A three-and-a-half minute dose of fondness, capturing a late summer light where the shadows are stretching and temperatures holding, and where the suggestion of any end only serves to strengthen the appreciation of the moment.” That’s how we described ‘Black Widow Lightning’, the lead single from Derek Ted‘s latest album, day went away. The song introduced the follow-up to 2022’s times have changed and indicated a continuation of the earnest tone which marked the previous release. And while not all the tracks on day went away are necessarily as bright and buoyant, the general mood permeates the record. That held within the title—a crepuscular light which seems to heighten the present by wearing its own ephemerality so conspicuously.
Opener ‘Shadow’ offers a direct engagement with such images of light, tapping into a diurnal rhythm (“Shadow… my only friend my always enemy,” as Ted sings, “why do I run from you / when you’re always here with me”), while ‘August’ invokes the month of its title to speak of endings in annual terms. Both hint at an approaching conclusion of some kind, though inherent in any ending is the possibility of a new beginning too.
i was done right as the day went away
how long will i wait in silent blue & violet?
how long till i see the sunrise clinging onto
night sky?
Songs like ‘Map’ complicate the pattern, offering both a sense of nostalgia and yearning for some imagined present, while others such as ‘Why Wonder Why’ wrap their questioning lyrics in sunny rhythms. Two styles might be said to sit at opposite ends of the spectrum—considered melancholy and peppy rhythm—yet all work towards the same overall mood. Which makes the album’s slow tip into something darker all the more noticeable. The appropriately named ‘Sorrow Starts’ is heavy with some unshakeable sadness, as though the sun has dipped just that little bit further and the shadows are starting to gain more ground. “I wanna write a song as sad as I feel lately / like running water from the tap i want it easy,” Ted sings on closer ‘Rainstorm’, leaning fully into the encroaching darkness. “Cuz life is always cutting me so deep one day it’ll ‘ take me like a faded photograph I’m half of what I used to be.”
day went away is out now and available from the Derek Ted Bandcamp page.