Erika Spring :: "Hidden"

You have almost certainly had dreams that feel more real than Erika Spring's latest release, "Hidden". The second song off her coming EP, Spring, born Erika Forster of Au Revior Simone fame, unleashes a haunting series of synthesizers and distant vocals. "Hidden" peaks in the middle with a bridge (and it could easily be a chorus but for her decision to use it only once) of pulsing vocal and synth peel-offs that begin at the 1.18 mark. The rest is a woozy and blinking drive through the singer's back streets around lyrics like, "It's just not the way it seems" and the substantially more judgmental final line, "It's just not the way it's done." More than a decade ago, I watched computer science students play Tetris on the side of a high rise building, all the windows wired with Christmas lights and all programmed to go together: blinking, organized and surreal in the spring evening. "Hidden" feels a lot like that, a small crowd gathering to watch something weird and beautiful, and waking up the next morning and thinking, maybe that didn't happen.