Art with a message is one thing, art with a message and a direction is another, but art with both those things, backed with masterful execution, is in a class all on its own.
Enter, Thy Veils. A Romanian artistic collective from the beautiful Timisoara, Thy Veils have been a thing for more than 2 decades. Taking it upon themselves to stay ahead of the advancements of technology in music and music making, the ensemble often includes composers, performers, designers, choreographers, and visual artists, carefully utilizing those talents to make ethereal, ageless music that sounds equally primordial and futuristic.
Their latest release, the enigmatic ‘Upstream’ is a journey of ethereal soundscapes and haunting voices and instrumentals that will leave you equally fulfilled and dumbfounded. With a melancholic and minimal composition, the emotional heft is left to be expressed primarily by the production, and with this, we have a song that excels on the front of sound design, with trappy, stuttering beats, a warm, throbbing bass tone that plays snaky, melodic lines and a number of colorful fills, all wrapped in a blanket of cold, airy synth pads, and a trumpet that sets an ominous mood, while adding an essential element that bolsters the timelessness that the group was going for. The ethereal vocals are haunting and the deliveries are sublime and beautifully fit into the narrative that the lyrics describe.
This wonderful addition from an endlessly creative and expansive collective ‘Thy Veils’ is artistic, soothing, and introspective. Packed with care, Upstream is a song with immaculate depths and countless layers, displaying massive talent and vision.