Jaya Bremer’s new single, Our Potential, opens with a simple combination of elements. A softly rounded synth picks out a series of slow chords as a looped rhythm establishes a bed for Bremer’s haunted vocal.
As the song hits the chorus, it builds a stride. The contrast reflects a building confidence and assertiveness from Bremer. Born of a growing yearning, her vocal is louder, clearer, and underpinned by more forthright instrumentation. ‘I’m running out of patience’, Bremer sings, ‘the anticipation, of something new’.
Jaya Bremer’s path to this slice of minimal electronic pop is somewhat unusual. Based in Victoria, British Columbia, Bremer has been on the Victoria music scene for nearly ten years. Her credentials are diverse — fronting a manouche jazz quintet, a Patsy Cline tribute act, an indie-rock band named Wise Child.
Here on Our Potential, Bremer evokes the dance-floor based emotional vulnerability of Robyn, but blends it with the kind of subtlety portrayed by The Japanese House. I find Our Potential extremely effective — restrained and yet desperately emotive. It tracks down those thrilling moments where a physical intimacy is in the air and captures them, the spaces between two people as notable as the spaces their bodies actually occupy. Like the Miles Davis quote, it’s about the notes you don’t play, this is a song about the physical space not occupied. Describing the song, Bremer says:
‘This song is written about a crush developed outside of a committed relationship. It is about the longing, the fantasy of someone else that you know little about and can project your desires onto. Our Potential was written as an outlet for this desire, as a way of allowing myself to explore that longing without doing something I was likely to regret. This song is about not wanting to compromise, but to have it all, the freedom and fun, as well as the person waiting for me at home.’
As Jaya’s new single slides itself towards a conclusion, rising arpeggios echoing French touch, something is unleashed. ‘I wanna give up nothing’, she whispers, the music shaking free of all that restraint, desire soaring. Someone needs to loop that final 45-second portion into something that fully lets me get lost inside of it. My finger on the rewind button, as Bremer says, ‘I’m running out of patience… How about you?’