This one’s a trip.
Talking about his experience of being an aspiring young musician, SANTO has a way of delivering stories with a sense of wistful romance. Putting us in the shoes of someone confronted with the kinds of opportunities they just don’t know how to respond to, he starts:
“I was in Washington Square Park with my songwriting partner and best friend, busking, playing Beatles songs when a woman and some dudes in leather jackets and sunglasses walked up. She told us she liked our sound, our voices, and she wanted us to perform at her ‘fashion event.’ We were stoned, 16 years old, and had no idea what she was talking about. She gave us a card and walked away. We realized we were just talking with Blondie and she was talking about NYC Fashion Week.”
Kicked out from Selena Gomez’s degassing room, pursued by Disney and then seeing their music video shared by Wiz Khalifa, our artist subsequently moved to Nashville as a part-time studio assistant and farmhand. Yep, farmhand. Road trips, encounters with Ben Folds and Steven Tyler and transcendental experiences in the Grand Canyon follow. Eventually, our artist settles in Utah. It is here that SANTO fully emerges.
Deliberately eclectic in terms of influences, SANTO + the PPL channel their sound from rock, grunge, and pop but also jazz and hip-hop. What struck me with Sun Hands is its dizzy lethargy, evoking the feeling of being a little too hot and too high to move… Warm days spent too comfortable to actually achieve much beyond existing. Jazzy keys twinkle as the lyrics tell the tale of the tug-of-war between mental distraction and presence:
“Sun Hands is inspired by these walks and adventures around Pittsburgh getting lost with my girlfriend and my dog on these backroads, and side streets. I’m distracted, or I'm caught up in my head, I'm venting to her about something and she grabs my hands, and that warmth from her hands in the sun… the way the light comes through the trees and illuminates the city… it brings me back.”
Sun Hands’ production conveys a beautiful sense of chaos and texture, but also place. I can feel the myriad of thoughts, the cacophony of distractions. But I also sense the warmth of another, and the feel of the sun. Nothing emphasises the importance of being present quite like the realisation that we only get this moment with this person once.
Check out Sun Hands below, or find it on Spotify and Apple Music. For the latest news, check out SANTO + the PPL's official site.