Free Music Monday: Misfit Mod "Valleys"

Artist: Misfit Mod
Track: "Valleys"
From: Islands & Islands LP
Label: Stars and Letters
Released: February 19, 2013

I already introduced you to Misfit Mod, the profound piece of deadzone synth-pop minimalism for ex-pat Kiwi Sarah Kelleher. And, here's more: a new single: "Valleys."

Few songs on Islands & Islands, the debut Misfit Mod LP, sound like traditional singles; they're too slow, or sullen, or elusive. But the album is so good —it's easily one of 2013's best debuts— that you could pick out any song and it'd be a good one.

Where the drum-machine plod often feels like a study in isolationsim, "Valleys" swells; there almost a romantic feeling to its anthemic chords, summoning distant "Take My Breath Away" memories in their plentiful reverb. "I don't get anything you say/but my wild heart beats for you," Kelleher sings.

It's not all devotional: the "Valleys" of the title symbolizing both the peaks/troughs of a relationship and the memories of a verdant New Zealand, a place in which, when remembered in a pique of homesickness, the grass is always greener.

• Misfit Mod, "Valleys"

Photo © Ed Lust