Seems appropriate that one of the tag’s for “New Birth” is “Okinawa.” Ignoring such holiday downers as U.S. Air Force bases and independence movements, the island prefecture conjures up images of beaches with swimming-pool-clear water and jungles full of chilled out toucans (note: I have no idea if toucans exist in Okinawa). Soar’s (a.k.a. Shota Nakahira) song fits this resort mood swimmingly (har har), a simple drum pattern skipping along with some beach-towel synth spread over it to add an element of easy-breeziness to the whole thing. Pretty minimal seeing as that’s basically the entire song…except for the vocals that edge close to near-rapping speed. This string of words and noises…”peace, yeah, one, yeah, infinity” with a fair amount of “huhs” between each of those…flow over the simplistic beat just right, teasing with the possibility of “New Birth” turning into a more “proper” song but never daring to do just that. It’s an intriguing strategy, that also doesn’t disrupt the general laid-back feel of the music. Maybe not the highlight of a vacation, but a pleasant memory of something simple.
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