Apples & Honey, the first single by Montreal songwriter Vincent Yelle from an upcoming album of the same name, is a deeply personal exploration of memory and grief with concepts of family at its core. It makes for uneasy listening but is an undeniably brave and beautiful means of grappling with subject matter so personal that many would shy away from it.
The song uses spoken word audio in quiet and memory-tugging ways, which interweaves with the lyrical folk settings of the surrounding melody with gentle eloquence. Production details are subtle but beautifully rendered – enhancing each moment of the song’s emotive ricochets, felt keenly in the final repeated chorus’s delicate intimacy when the raw core is left unencumbered by any frills. The musical minutiae throughout are dextrously judged to enhance the complex moods presented, and the words feel deliberately fragmentary – as memory often is – and overwhelmed by immersive longing. The spoken section, in French, carries the most intimate and crushingly sad details – unflinching and genuine and heart-breakingly tender.
“Despite the immense emptiness, I will feel your presence in everything we loved together and believe me, the list is almost endless…”
Written with his own mother about her relationship with his recently dead father, it’s not the most orthodox route to songwriting and feels almost uncomfortably voyeuristic at times. But these things should hardly feel comfortable, and it takes a brave soul to open up their heart so fully. The undeniable sonic and thematic influence of Sufjan Stevens is clear here- both in those potent parental shadows and in the heartfelt vocal delivery and elegant, elegiac folk-pop sounds that surround it, but Vincent Yelle has nevertheless utilised that torch paper of influence to his own ends and crafted something very special here.
I look forward to hearing the album in its entirety as, if Apples and Honey is anything to go by, Yelle is possessed of a particular talent that is well worth keeping a close eye and ear on.
Written by M.A Welsh (Misophone)
