Joviale, a multidisciplinary artist from North London, is a visual artist, performer and artist. Their sound is part-pop, part punk with its honest lyrics, syncopated melodies and playful production.
"Snow" is a single they released ahead of their full project in September.
The track is a love song, but not your typical one. It is written from the harsher side of love; those parts of loving someone that feel like 'the coldest winter's day': lonely, isolating and cold.
The sullen melodic synths, contrasted with the sparkly higher top notes and cheery layered vocals, create a sonic dichotomy. This mirrors the melancholic mood of the song that is both happy for what was, but sad for what no longer is 'nothing harder, nothing sadder'.
The multi-layered, almost disoriented production also echoes the confusion of the protagonist. There appears to be a conversation happening between the melody and the vocals, as they speak to one another in turn and sometimes together. Again, we feel a sense of being torn.
In the last 20 seconds, the song begins to strip back, entering a one dimensional soundscape. Then suddenly it begins to build again in the final 3 seconds before suddenly ending. This represents a new beginning: an ending of one thing and a journey into something else, something unknown.
Sonically defiant and lyrically melancholic, "Snow" is a bittersweet love letter to the excruciatingly beautiful pain that love brings.
