It’s not very often I hear one song from a band and reach out to them offering begging to write about whatever they release next because I'm that confident in their product.
Most recently it was Spark Alaska that enticed my eardrums. After hearing breakout track “Hidden Edelweiss” I decided I had to cover these guys. Much to my surprise “these guys” is actually one guy: Lorenzo Gillis Cook – a 19-year-old out of upstate NY who calls himself a “weird product of the internet and Europe” having spent most of his time living overseas and surfing the web to get acquainted with the US of A. In this case at least, “weird” directly translates to incredible. He's a solo singer songwriter that records off a mic in his bedroom and there's a sense of simplicity and raw vulnerability in his stripped down creations that make the music so intriguing and refreshing.
He has an easygoing sincere singing style a la Ben Gibbard – soft and distinct but filled with an urgency that transports me back to an era when I wasn’t jaded and love songs meant something. Spark Alaska is a refreshing jolt that stands out among the airtime regulars, where the melodies get muddled and the lyrics get lost in the overproduction process.
We'll take a break from waxing poetic about Cook's musical prowess to get to the point aka the premiere of Spark Alaska’s latest masterwork: “Serendipity.” It’s a song about summer romance, and a fling that organically turns into a more seriously thing. It sounds like young love feels – before there were pretenses, mind games, pre-nups and years of life lessons that diluted the passion and snuffed out the flame.
The song begins with a guitar intro and the line “I care about you more than anyone else in the world…” no frills, no flowery words, just a pure profound thought. The overarching guitar plucks (which he added later) add a sense of wide-eyed wonder to the track. The earnestness in the chorus “It’s not in the way we talk / it’s in the way we feel / when the silence is all around” makes us believe him and gives us hope even when navigating the future and the great unknown.
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So while we don’t know a lot, we do know this – Spark Alaska is the real deal and we’re so thankful that someone out there is still cooking up tracks that make us feel.
