Crystellia have provided the soundtrack for a naive kind of love on Skybound, a sprawling and entrancing debut single from the Sydney duo
The word ‘cinematic’ is thrown around a lot in music, but perhaps nowhere is the descriptor more fitting than on this sublime slice of angelicness.
Opening with dialogue samples and piano so airy they could reach the heavens, Skybound initially delivers the equivalent of a sonic daydream, complete with shimmering keys and the distant waft of light synths.
What begins as a dreamy reverie laters transforms into something more enriched, as Crystellia introduced heavier layered synths and distorted vocals.
So lavish is the tapestry of Skybound that at any given point, there’s ample production flairs to listen out for, from panning, subtle bass drops to tinkling keyboards and glitch-like effects.
The effect is an intro that simply washes over you, drenched in both tranquil atmospherics and more hard-hitting moments like punchy drums.
Later, these morsels of ear candy culminate and crescendo toward a pulsating instrumental explosion, which erupts with theremin-like effects and catchy vocal harmony snippets.
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In the track’s latter moments, Crystellia slow down the tempo and pare back the textures for a subtler and more simplistic outro, which feels reminiscent of those few quiet moments before awakening from a dream.
To top it all off, the duo infuse sparse lyricism within the soundscape, further enriching their tale of the giddiness that arises from a newfound crush.
Like any piece of cinematic music, the richness of Skybound leaves its narrative open to interpretation (this writer envisions it as the soundtrack of an ascent to the heavens), and Crystellia are equally invested in this storytelling function.
“There’s always a narrative to explore within our songs,” the duo said in a press statement, “and while we never explicitly mention it, you can always feel it in the music.”
Brimming with whimsey Skybound feels like an exercise in phantasmagoria. Get swept up in Crystellia’s debut single below.
