Ex Lover: Each Time My Heart Is Broken – single review

Ex Lover

Each Time My Heart Is Broken

Self-released

Streaming

Out Now

Ex-Lover muse on broken hearts on their new single.

Back in March 2020, just as the first lockdown was hitting the UK, we reviewed Ex Lover’s Gloomtube EP, and since then the world has changed in ways we couldn’t have envisaged. Musicians are denied the ability to connect physically with their audience. Some may have thought that artists could have used the downtime to be more creative but, as music producer and writer Dan Faulkner, the man behind Ex Lover, says: “I think people are making out that they are re-inventing themselves in lockdown… I’m not sure it’s all that true. If anything, I have found that I totally undervalued the motivation that I get from human contact and the wider world. Sitting at home staring at the walls all day broken up by weekly trips to Tesco or a walk round the block isn’t exactly a recipe for enthusiasm. I think most people are gritting their teeth and hoping that they will be able to do some of the things they enjoy again, one day…. and maybe then, they will get their mojo back.”

Now Ex Lover have released a new single, Each Time My Heart Is Broken, which is available on Spotify and Soundcloud. Dan says the inspiration for the track is ‘personal growth’, about the ‘stuff that happens to you, or things that you experience, can often shatter your realities and from that, you have to put the pieces back together and incorporate the things you didn’t know before.’ The title comes from Frank O’Hara’s poem, Meditations In An Emergency.

It opens with an almost tribal drum beat, rising up from the depths. Melancholy chords hang over the beat, and then single notes murmur like random thoughts, emotions flailing across a troubled mind. A voice, lamenting, ululates over the melody. The middle section is like a dark disco jag. The single notes, splayed across the beats, sound like rain falling across the streets, whilst a figure huddles in a nightclub doorway. Everybody has gone home, except the spurned lover, who is left to howl a lament into the night. The final notes are like a ticking clock, or a beating heart, to show that life goes on.

It’s a beautiful, thoughtful mood piece for those lockdown nights.

You can find Ex Lover on Facebook.

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All words by Mark Ray. More writing by Mark Ray can be found at his author archive. And he can be found on Twitter, Instagram and WordPress

Source: louderthanwar.com