New Zealand composer Rhian Sheehan’s new single, Soma Dreams, is a lush, ambient piece merging an orchestral atmosphere with electronic soundscapes.
The new single is taken from the Sheehan’s upcoming album, A Quiet Divide, which will mark the artist’s first release in five years.
On Soma Dreams, Rhian Sheehan melds together sampled electronic sounds and spoken word with a lush string section, creating an altogether charming and whimsical piece of music.
The idea for the song came when Sheehan recorded the song onto one of his tape machines, “looped it, and played around with some chords and melodies over the loop, then dabbled away on an old 8-bit toy keyboard synth.”
To help give the song more structure, Sheehan’s wife Raashi helped co-write the track and played the piano parts.
“I had a nostalgic childlike feel in my head that took a while to achieve sonically. I wanted the string outro section to feel like it was recorded at Abbey Road in the ’60s or something.”
To achieve this sound, Sheehan worked closely with orchestrator Ryan Youens. As for the song’s psychedelic sounding name, Sheehan says his five year-old daughter, whose name is Soma, came up with the title when she walked into a mixing session.
A Quiet Divide is set to be Sheehan’s most cinematic album yet, as it merges orchestral arrangements with the post-punk sounds that listeners know him for so well.
A Quiet Divide is available on October 5th.
