Sensory experience conjures the ghosts of our personal memories. Although the smell of fresh grass might symbolize spring for most, it could also be associated with someone’s first kiss or when they first heard the news about a lost loved one. How our bodies perceive the world bursting with colors, smells, sounds, and textures is observed as universal (the sky is blue/lemons are sour) yet so deeply personal based on our own lived experiences. You probably already understand this but, Y0rkshire’s Amy May Ellis captures the preciousness of this concept with her latest song “A Fresh Drone.”
The new single is a minimal ballad with spaced guitar plucks that maintain the tender rhythm of Ellis’ singing. There’s a low humming, a droney bass that comes in and rescinds like a gentle morning wave. And then maybe there’s the sound of actual wave, or fuzzy white noise, coupled with a child’s voice and birds chirping. On a “A Fresh Drone,” Ellis enlivens our senses while talking about her own unique experience. “Oh there’s freshness to this / Quenching my thirst for a stillness,” she sings.
She enlightens us a bit about the track’s meaning: “This song is about the freshness that comes with the changing of the seasons. There’s a moment in each transition when the wind changes temperature for the first time and you can smell the new season in the air. This always brings a feeling of a memory, like when you wake up from a dream and you can’t remember what happened but the feeling is still there. It’s an old feeling, made up from fragments of what that season felt like when I was a child, it grounds me, makes me feel at home and whole, although there is something slightly sad about it at the same time.”
Experience it below.
