Album Review: SoftSun, Daylight in the Dark
Posted in Reviews on November 19th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
SoftSun is the three-piece of bassist/vocalist Pia Isaksen, guitarist Gary Arce and drummer Dan Joeright, all of whom come to the new project with pedigree. Joeright was in Aboleth and Earth Moon Earth, and has recorded some of Arce‘s other projects in recent years, whether it’s desert rock progenitors Yawning Man, which Arce co-founded in the 1980s or Big Scenic Nowhere, and Arce played guitar on three of the songs on the 2022 solo debut from Isaksen (who also fronts Oslo’s Superlynx), Distorted Chants (review here), and six of the eight total on this year’s follow-up, Dissolve (review here), so nobody is a stranger to each other here. If one were to view Daylight in the Dark, the first SoftSun full-length, as following the thread of the two Isaksen solo records in tightening the collaboration with Arce with Joeright producing (Aaron Farinelli co-engineered) and drumming, that’s a fair enough contextual read on how the band might’ve happened, if not necessarily the actual story of the six-song/41-minute record, which lives up to the adage of being broader than the sum of its parts.
For those who know Arce‘s oeuvre in Yawning Man, Yawning Sons, Yawning Balch, Ten East, Dark Tooth Encounter, and so on, he’s on form throughout Daylight in the Dark, harnessing tonal expanse and a sense of improvised instrumental exploration set to the steady grooves of Joeright; very much the daylight to the encompassing low end wrought in Isaksen‘s basslines, which in turn become the ‘dark’ being referenced in the title. What’s not accounted for in that admittedly simple math are Isaksen‘s vocals, which through Superlynx and into her solo work carry an ethereal reverb like a resonant calling card. Her performance on vocals here is emotive and fragile — on “Continents” she asks for a shifting of tectonic plates with particular longing, and the bleaker “Exit Wounds” is greeted with due brooding — and balanced dynamically in the mix to be more forward at times while buried elsewhere within the morass of effects and psychedelic-leaning fluidity.
This is all well and good, but what’s most surprising about Daylight in the Dark ends up being how heavy it is. Opener “Unholy Waters,” “Daylight in the Dark” and “Exit Wounds” appear in succession before side A closes with “Continents,” and through all of them, the upward float of Arce‘s guitar — which is as staple an element as you get; it’s what he does, and oftentimes even his repeated riffs are structured airy leads — is answered decisively with the low breadth of Isaksen‘s tone. On “Exit Wounds,” the bass is outright doomed, and even “Continents,” which is a bit more gentle in pushing the vocals forward and gives a little more of a verse/chorus feel than, say, the title-track, which also has a structure but feels as much about ambience as it reaches simultaneously upward and down tonally in exactly this fashion. That dynamic would seem to put Joeright in the middle of the proceedings in the holding-it-all-together role, but that’s not really the case. It’s not like Daylight in the Dark is a collection of disparate jams. These are composed songs — when the title-track seems to take off right as it hits the midpoint, it’s not an accident — and however nebulous their outward face might be, the chemistry and persona behind them is purposeful and something that has developed over several years.
That gives SoftSun something of an advantage going into a first record, but hearing Daylight in the Dark in comparison to Isaksen‘s Dissolve — which is probably the closest analogue; released the same year with at least two-thirds the same personnel working from a similar foundation of influence — it feels like Isaksen and Arce, in company with Joeright, have organically arrived at a next stage of working together, and that’s the band itself. What might be most encouraging about that is the sense of refresh they give to each other’s sounds. From Mario Lalli to Billy Cordell and plenty of others besides, Arce has played with more than a handful of bassists over the last 30-plus years. Isaksen‘s low end complements his guitar like none of them. It comes from a different place — yes, literally, from Norway, but I’m talking stylistically — and feels more rooted in metal and, as noted, doom, while both instrument and vocals are treated with echo and whatever else such that even the violent implications of a song like the penultimate “Dragged Across the Desert Floor” becomes a gorgeously languid roll with the blend of daylight, dark, and groove that comprises it.
Not only that, but the bass seems to be a feature in Joeright‘s mix for these songs more than it often is in Arce‘s work. One might be tempted to compare SoftSun and the Arce-inclusive one-off Zun album from 2016, Burial Sunrise (review here) — or at least the half of it that Sera Timms (Black Math Horseman) sang on — but in that too, the bass shines in righteous differentiation. Daylight in the Dark is richer for the depth, and even as the eponymous “Soft Sun” closes as the longest inclusion at over 11 minutes long, what’s being reinforced — expanded on, even, with keyboard-esque sounds that emerge in the early going and meld with the guitar if they were ever there in the first place — is the distinct impression that the album makes separate either from any of these three artists’ previous work.
Sound like hyperbole, I know. I’m not saying that Isaksen‘s voice and bass or Arce‘s guitar aren’t recognizable in the slow immersion of “Soft Sun,” but that like the album that precedes it, the finale emphasizes how much the two bring to the band’s sound and how well their styles play off of each other. The result — and I’m not trying to downplay Joeright‘s contributions, either on drums or in the recording process; clearly he’s essential personnel — is that SoftSun occupies a new niche branched off from all three respective discographies, and the only remaining question I’m left with is what the future will bring. Could be SoftSun is a one-shot deal and Isaksen, Arce and Joeright will go their separate ways, or Daulight in the Dark could very easily be the beginning of a longer-term aural progression, putting a different spin on heavy post-rock and desert-hued psych and growing as the band — live shows? — moves forward. This debut, a first showing of who SoftSun are and what they might become over time, leaves one hopeful.
