San Francisco’s Mikey Maramag, best known as Blackbird Blackbird, has just released “Tangerine Sky”, his sophomore album with which he continues offering more of his melodic dreampop embellished with his best mastery. It features 11 impassioned tracks where he concentrates so many emotions. It’s clear that Maramag has grown up and you could check it in his particular world.
As the track that names the album, ‘Tangerine Sky’ is the opening song and it will hook you from the very first second. Mikey knows what he does when he gets to take us into an instrumental progression that goes in crescendo, textures and layers meet swirling pads and a daze bassline; his ghostly vocals and the oscillation game are the icing on the cake. ‘Love Unlimited’ is the second track, here we can see the most indie and romantic side of the Californian. Acoustic sounds go together with tender vocals, it may seems odd but here the guitar sets the pace. With ‘Feel In My Bones’ we continue in the sentimental mood but this time everything revolves around the nostalgic and wishful melodies seasoned with smooth and twangy synths.
‘Darlin Dear’ gets us into the analogue world and as if we were into another dimension, the resounding drums and bubbling finger pulses take the main role; this is a very nice song. ‘There Is Nowhere’ is the most sensual track, glo-fi is all over the room and invites us to relax our mind; the voice and those smacking pads say it all. Treehouse’ pops up bringing happiness and joy with a primitive and pseudo-wind instrumentation, your feet will move unconsciously to reach ‘Summer’s Almost Here’. Maramag goes into another progression full of his best compositional arrangements that inside of all this “supposed” chaos everything ends up in perfect harmony. Summer is definitely here and this track is epic. Geometric doodles back and force mix with hypnotic and entrancing vocals that come and go as a mirage.
‘Polaris’ is another galaxy, spatial synths meet jingle and tinkling sounds. Now it’s time to go back to the cheerful and pleasant perspective with ‘Rare Candy’. It is a slice of pure electro sunshine, we love that flavour.
We are almost finished with ‘Beats’, another dose of beaming downtempo and delicate synth-work that take us closer to the end.
As every final track, Maramag wants a warm farewell and he gets it with ‘Grow Old With Me (Don’t Let Me Go). A beautiful song with a deep message. The pure vocals get the whole attention, with them go together sweet guitar chords and a minimal display. We’ve touched the end.
