Following on from their beautiful tropical-paradise-gone-wrong ballad, Never Right, Sea Glass and Yes Kid are back with another collaboration. Here Sea Glass, real name Jake Muskat, is also joined by Jared Saltiel. Together with Yes Kid, real name Yael Kaufman, the trio have created a less sun-kissed record, but it’s beautiful nonetheless.
Where Never Right felt like the sort of record recorded on and for beaches, 5pm is suited to the time of year that sees it released… which is to say, it is a more autumnal affair. There is a haunting aesthetic to the reverb-laced vocals laid down by Kaufman, but she is complimented by additional vocal harmonies and the kind of sturdy instrumentation that provides the song a sense of cosiness.
5pm is deliberately a slow build, the stated intention behind the song being to create ‘a deliberately paced, nearly imperceptible build toward a climactic, emotional ending’. And on that, it delivers — the song very much constructing a vibe, and then being carried, by that vibe’s steely guitars and hushed vocals, to a conclusion. The song started as Sea Glass and Saltiel first experimented with the song’s chord progression and structure as they worked as artist residents at Silver Sun Foundation in Woodstock, NY. At the same time, Muskat was interested in working with Yes Kid, and began to construct the music around her sound:
‘ I wrote the chords with Yael in mind. I had known that I wanted to work with her since I first discovered her music in 2021. I was enamored with her songwriting and the texture of her voice… Sincere, sensitive and haunting. I told Jared about the idea, and we listened to some of the tracks I wanted to model ours after. (…) The sunny, cool October day that he joined me at my artist residency in Woodstock, we set up a makeshift studio. The room and moment felt spiritual, to us both I think, and we decided to wait until 5pm to christen the space. We ended up working straight through until 5am, creating the most emotionally palpable music bed I’ve had the pleasure of making.
‘When I returned home, I sent Yael the song and within a day, she sent me most of the recording you hear on the record. The sense of longing for everything to be OK and the resolve despite knowing it may not be moved me so much. Since that day, I’ve probably listened to the song 1000 times. For me, it’s the perfect driving record, hence the cover art.’
Check out 5pm below.
