Dua Saleh
Of Earth & Wires
GHOSTLY
What happens when there’s no safety from the person you once thought only contained love? That’s the question that Sudanese-American songwriter Dua Saleh asks on “5 Days,” the opening track to their latest project, Of Earth & Wires. The follow-up to their 2024 debut sees Saleh combine R&B, indie rock, electronic pop, and Sudanese folk music with spoken-word poetry to create a tapestry of lush, rustling sounds paired with mythic language that invokes introspection and complex emotions—a spiritual journey of self-discovery that explores a mix of emotions ranging from forlorn attachment to bubbling rage, as heard on “5 Days.”
“And I’ve been seeing a couple therapists / Oh, been a while since I touched your face,” Saleh sings at the beginning of the album opener with a sense of yearning commonly found in songs about heartbreak. They then set themselves apart from clichés in the second half of the song as their dulcet vocals become distorted and you can hear a painful desperation in their voice as they sing over increasingly chaotic instrumentation: “Now you on my phone tryna beg / I ain’t coming back / I ain’t no falling for it.” Before the track ends, we hear a spoken-word allusion to the condemned Prometheus, who was punished for all eternity by the gods. “But the moon still beats / Her foot to the Earth,” Saleh sings, hinting at the universe’s indifference to the lover’s pain—presumably Saleh’s indifference, as well.
The next track, “B re a t h e,” perfectly encapsulates its title with floaty electronic production that tickles the ear as Saleh wordpaints gracefully: “Are you feeling the air around me? / Are you feeling the breeze?” Of Earth & Wires ebbs and flows like this—and sometimes even sits still—from the intensity of “5 Days” and “Cállate” to softer moments such as the Bon Iver–featuring “Flood.” It maintains a mid-tempo pace during the last half of the record, with the exception of the aptly titled “Speed Up” and the experimental closer “All Is Love.” Saleh constructs beautiful imagery throughout, spinning words into powerful emotions that complement the melody like finding the right puzzle piece. Some lines hit harder, like “He who mixes poison is bound to lick his fingers”—a Sudanese proverb found on “I Do, I Do” that connects to something more ancient and lived.
The rage and tenderness found throughout Of Earth & Wires meet in the album closer, transforming into something altogether new. Working like the final scene before the end credits roll, “All Is Love” feels like relief, a symbolic letting go or an alchemical transformation. The rage and horrors experienced aren’t erased, but fully processed. “Truthfully floating in the swamp of eyes / Love is an allness, open-ended sky,” recites aja monet in the spoken-word outro, turning an ambiguous future into something more hopeful. It’s a strong ending for an enchanting record.
