Samara Alofa ⁠— B​.​T​.​T​.​G

It is not often I consider a tab on Chrome to be a little pocket of peaceful darkness from which beauty can be tapped into. All week I have kept Samara Alofa’s Bandcamp page open, tucking it behind emails, social media, Google Docs. Its favicon has soothed me, a black square with a bright blue multi-layered, multi-featured face in its centre. When I have spare moments, I play B.T.T.G (Back to the Gods) quietly to myself. 

The song seems to resonate out of darkness, like the moon catching tips of waves at night-time. Layered translucent vocals, gentle beats and rhythmic synthesised tones build a slow soundscape. Here is a place where sounds shift, are dismantled, turned anew, and reemerge. Here is a place made of soft, textured dissipation: ‘Kiss me o so softly.’ Here is the sky, blue and suspended with tiny droplets of water, moonlight misted: ‘oh feel so lovely’. This is a song materialising the unseen, asking for the past and the future. They are calling forth something, and I, tuning in through my browser window, am enchanted.

Review by Gabi Lardies.