The collaboration between Memory Spells, the project of producer Matt Bauer, and vocalist/composer Jordan Whitlock has yielded "Higher," a stunning first dispatch from their upcoming collaborative album, This Is What It Feels Like. The new single, serves as an exercise in remote intimacy, with Bauer in Los Angeles and Whitlock in San Diego, an actual physical distance that defines the album's core sound of longing and possibility.
"Higher" immediately establishes the record's aesthetic: a lush, cinematic blend of ethereal dream pop and hushed chamber-folk, finding common ground with the gauzy melancholia of Beach House or Men I Trust. Whitlock’s vocals are a crystalline, vulnerable centerpiece, perfectly suspended within Bauer's production—a meticulous arrangement of airy synths, minimalist guitar, vintage drum machines, and haunting strings. It's a sound that evokes the soft-focus, late-night mood of a modern classic, building on the atmospheric pop legacy of artists like Daughter.
The album promises to explore the fragile moments that define human relationships This Is What It Feels Like ultimately tells a compelling story of two artists who only met in person after creating more than half the music—a deeply personal dialogue captured in sound.
