Adam Lytle of Brooklyn bands Quicksilver Daydream and Wild Leaves is releasing his debut solo album ‘This Is The Fire’ in October with the second single ‘At Your Command’ being released tomorrow. Adam has given Joyzine the pleasure of sharing this with our readers the day before its official release. He says of the single:
“For At Your Command, I teamed up with my long time collaborators, Cinematographer, Doug Horton, and Creative Director Drake Miller, to create a one-take music video that explores how far humans will go for love. The video was shot on Drake’s property in Wurtsboro, New York. We had a 45-minute window to execute the choreography before the sun went down. We wanted my character to be at his physical limit. What you’re seeing is the last take and a real struggle.”
The song is utterly captivating from the start as it is held together with a constantly rolling guitar line throughout. Lytle’s voice, unadorned by effects, offers a light tremolo and earnest delivery and, bit by bit, the song begins to open up, adding mournful piano notes and strummed guitar chords while the yearning of strings swell up like the allusion of the sea echoed in the song’s lyrics:
“I am the breath, the wind on the sea.
I am the wave called from the deep.
If I am the wave, you are the tide that controls me.
I am a tear shed by the sun
I am the mist, the dew in the dawn.
If I am the dawn, for you I’ll break.
Say the word darling, I will chase darkness for you”
The protagonist of the song is clearly been under the spell of another – “Love, I surrender. You, hold the reigns. Here I am, at your command” – and the sense of “how far humans will go for love” maybe answered by why the protagonist is dragging what appears to be a wrapped body and what happened to get to that point. There is the feeling of forward movement in the song, mirrored by using one-take* in the video.
Sometimes it’s the unanswered questions that intrigue us the most, but in the case of ‘At Your Command’ I can say that this track, along with the first single ‘Highway Nightmare’, are great heralds for the album release which you can pre-order from Adam Lytle’s Bandcamp page.
Adam Lytle socials: Website | Twitter | Instagram | Soundcloud | Bandcamp | Youtube
* The record for the longest one-take shot in film is currently held by Aleksandr Sokurov’s film Russian Ark, which is one unbroken, 96-minute, take.
Review by Paul F Cook
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