Regardless of whether you’ve heard anything Tim Linghaus has done or not, today is your lucky day, you just don’t know it yet. I hadn’t heard any of his work, and so I didn’t know it was my lucky day either, until I sat down to write this premiere. You’re about to hear Linghaus’ fabulous new song, “Danger Zones” – it gives us great pleasure to introduce you to it.
Haunting and subtle, “Danger Zones” is an exploration of solitude. It’s a tantalising taste of Linghaus’ upcoming album, Venus Years, which will be released on December 11 via Schole Records. The second in a series of albums that started with 2019’s When We Were Young You Left Home, Venus Years is a musical representation of divorce as seen through the eyes of a child. Linghaus explains: ‘Coping with solitude, rediscovering structure, the significance of the new daily routine and regaining self-confidence are the key themes upon which the music is built‘.
Shrouded in a dreamy retro atmosphere, courtesy of gentle vinyl crackling and detuned synth chords, “Danger Zones” instantly invokes a sense of nostalgia and also apprehension. A piano quakes lonesomely, a guitar whispers sweet nothings in mild note flurries, the understated bass locks in with the unembellished kick drum. The warmth of the instrumentation is juxtaposed by robotic vocals, autotune and pitch shift warbling in unison, and the shuddering metallicness of the hi hat. Drifting in and out of consciousness, the space of the song warps with each passing breath, sometimes tight and claustrophobic, other times lofty and astral. Attention to detail turns the simplicity of the song’s bones into three minutes of fascination.
“Danger Zones” is a 4am kind of song, sitting on your front doorstep, the door open just a crack, revealing the burnt-out aftermath of a party. Maybe you’re alone, maybe some of your friends are still there, passed out on the couch or drinking in dysphoric silence. There’s a heavy feeling of melancholic emptiness, the afterthought of drunkenness; you’re at the point where you know you should go to bed before you fall asleep involuntarily, but instead you light another cigarette and wait for the dizziness to subside.
Maybe it’s 4am where you are right now, and you can identify with the paragraph above all too well, or maybe something within the emotional content of “Danger Zones” struck you. Perhaps, like me, you just enjoyed Tim Linghaus’ sensitive execution of dark pop. Whatever the case, make sure you pre-order Venus Years here, and check out Linghaus’ Facebook and Bandcamp profiles. Trust me, they are not danger zones.
