“[The] line between flat disaffection and overwhelming feelings, so typical of authors like Ottessa Moshfegh and Kathryn Scanlan, [lifts] Sea Lemon above its contemporaries,” we wrote back in 2023 of the EP Stop At Nothing. “A tone which allows [Natalie] Lew’s narrators to feel at once fearful and dangerous, some absence at the heart of their existence pushing them toward the darkest of places.” Such a mood was central to the release, though more recently, single ‘Crystals’ saw Lew push the Sea Lemon project in a slightly different direction. With the help of vocals from Benjamin Gibbard, the song offered a mood which was “not quite so foreboding,” as we put it, “but still bucks expectation with its willingness to forgo escape attempts and instead embrace the gloomy present.”
Now Sea Lemon is back with another new single on Luminelle Recordings. Described as “a dreamy paean to the beginnings of a relationship,” ‘Sweet Anecdote’ employs a delicate swirl of synths to recreate a dreamy, slightly surreal space in which everything is vivid and anything seems possible. But what is most impressive about the track is how it manages to maintain a sense of depth and nuance despite its more overtly positive tone, Lew treating the heady days of romance with the same level of interest as any other emotional state, hurdling a sense of saccharine sentimentality to offer something almost hypnotic.
You were the one
Knew from the start
God I was so
Sure when I saw
You in your car
Such a sweet anecdote
Watch the visualizer by Alexa Terfloth below:
‘Sweet Anecdote’ is out now via Luminelle Recordings and available from Bandcamp.