I feel like we can’t stop talking about SSAANN on Start-Track as of late. We’ve covered four singles from their debut album Higher over the past several months: “Channel (Can’t Handle)”, “Wade”, “Above It”, and “Echo”. Now, the album has finally dropped, and it’s time to cover the rest of the Milwaukee dream pop band’s release, one that will very much make you feel as though you’re ascending to the clouds, the heavens, space, or perhaps some alternate plane of existence altogether.
You’ll feel that rise from the jump on “111”, where Melissa Simes’s ethereal vocals blend with her synths to create textures that dance in your ears and tickle your brain. You’ll hear some piano repeating in the background, a nod to Simes’s classical studies. Simes was all in on the piano for most of her life, but everything changed after her introduction to the Juno DS88 synth almost a decade ago. Blending her knowledge of classical composition with the ability to manipulate digitized sound, Simes continued to expand her synth mastery as backup keyboardist for fellow Milwaukee band Known Moons. Her introduction to the Korg Prologue paved a path for the shimmering sound that now identifies SSAANN’s music, especially on Higher.
But of course, Simes’s synths only make up one-quarter of SSAANN. Tommy Behan (drums) joined her first, with revolving guitarists and drummers following soon after. The songs of Higher come from six years of work, with Simes crafting the initial sketches on her synth. Behan’s involvement led to the sonic breakthrough, and together and with help from fellow musicians, they shaped what resulted in the album’s ten songs.
The tracks themselves take from all different elements of the emotional realm, using the bubbly timbres of each instrument as bouncing-off points for channeling meaning. On “Above It”, as Grizzly mentioned in his write-up of the single, Simes centers her lyrics around letting go and breaking through. The echoing pads and Simes’s yearning vocals pair well together, and the guitar (from Simes on this track) cuts through with a delayed effect that symbolizes wanting to feel present in the moment, leaving traces of the past fading behind.
“Drone” slows the tempo a tad, but does not drone as the title suggests. Rather, Simes’s vocals stretch into the distance, suggesting an out-of-body feeling confirmed in the lyrics: “You say to my face that you don’t know / You’re spent, and I’m too far gone / Falling slow, hard to grow, it’s so heavy”. Whatever strains the subject of Simes’s song also strains her, resulting in emptiness, although “Drone” sounds anything but empty. Rather, the wall of sound from Simes’s synths and Behan’s drums fills the void. The major key dreamland in the music serves as a colorful facade to the bleak feelings present in the lyrics.
Grubby talked about “Channel (Can’t Handle)”, touching on Simes’s vocals blending into the pads to the point where they themselves sound like a synth, as if Simes has become one with her instrument. He also touched on the pulse of the kick as “an ever-present heartbeat”, an accurate statement about the track, as it flows like blood through veins or water through a stream giving life to the ecosystem around it.
A wordless “Untitled Interlude” acts as a liminal space before the second half of the record, before plunging us into “Echo”, which I covered not too long ago. I mentioned the track helped serve as a “transition from the chill of winter into the warm dewiness of spring”, and I stand by that point, as I feel the preceding interlude’s interdimensional feeling gives the track an “in-between” feeling, like laying in bed with the lights off and seeing spots dance in front of your eyes, not quite asleep, but not quite awake.
“Fade” turns up the dance-pop elements, breaking us out of the trance of the two tracks before it, depending on the clock-like drumwork of Behan and the soaring guitar of Jenna Rades. Then “Wade” goes into more of a sped-up coastal indie kick, something like what Beach Vacation (for the real Start-Track label heads) or Cloud Nothings might produce. Filip said last November about the end of the track: “Creating such a powerful, mesmerizing atmosphere, I could just lose myself in it.” Indeed, as the guitar and pads swell together to an almost disorienting volume in the mix, I felt overwhelmed with emotion, as if I had waded far into the ocean only to see a great wave rushing toward me, then over me.
“I Already Know” acts as a short vocal piece to calm us down, but in the words there is grief: “I already know what it’s like, what it’s like to be in love / I already know how it feels, how it feels to lose a love.” It is Simes’s voice multiplied a la Imogen Heap, as if to represent a choir in a cathedral, with all vocal ranges represented to create a truly haunting choral arrangement.
Finally, “Center” introduces new instruments to the mix in the form of a live string quartet. The extra lush layer empowers the aural representation of deep introspection, meditation on pain and unrequited romance:
“I told you, might not be nice
I heard you saying it feels right
I trust you to say it every time
And I still do even though you’re not mine”
The song distills the themes of the record: Reconciling with the past, striving to move beyond silly drama, and still falling into worrisome spirals. As “Center” fades out, Simes’s synths bend their pitch up to a startling tone, then dissolve into her layered angelic chorus once more, symbolizing the ascension into another plane of headspace, breaking from the material world through the firmament in search of answers.
Maybe there are no answers. Maybe only in these moments of musical escape – the experimentation with electronic sounds, the plunging into hypnotic drum patterns, dipping into the void of wordless voices – can we find some sort of meditation, even peace. I said when I reviewed “Echo” that the single came in handy as a soundtrack for disassociation. But that was just one song: Throughout the length of Higher, SSAANN provide an entire symphony.
So if you need a soundscape for tuning out the noise of the outside world and tuning into a higher plane of your mind, SSAANN has you covered.
Take a listen to Higher and follow SSAANN on their socials below.
Written by Will Sisskind
