Review: Philtre's 'Fade' Featuring Younha Uses Haunting Production To Create A Sound That Comes On Like A Forgotten Dream [VIDEO]

Even the first time you listen to "Fade" featuring Younha, by Philtre of electronic production team Planet Shiver, it feels familiar.

Like a song from a forgotten dream or a distant part of your brain that is impossible to access, "Fade" arrives in the speakers like some kind of auditory hallucination.

A selection from record label Amoeba Culture's "NOWorkend" project, the concept brings together artists from the company's roster to create music that is different from what the musicians are known for.

In the case of the collaboration between Philtre and K-pop singer Younha, Amoeba Culture has struck gold.

Younha's restrained, soulful voice is the perfect match for the diligently layered production that Philtre does well.

If anyone at the record label knows what they are doing, they will team these two artists up for a full album.

American reviewers discussing "Fade" will inevitably reference British singer Dido, who achieved major US chart success after rapper Eminem used a sample of her song "Thank You" in his tale of a crazed fan, "Stan."

Yet comparing Philtre and Younha's new single to Dido doesn't do it justice.

There is a calming quality to Dido's music that instantly engaged thirty-something moms across the country.

Although the production on "Fade" is impressively restrained, even at the song's climax, it is not simple, soothing pop music like Dido's.

There is something deeply haunting about the sonic landscape that Philtre has created, and distinctly more interesting.

A better comparison would be to the song "Little Person" that Jon Brion wrote for Charlie Kaufman's often-misunderstood 2008 masterpiece "Synecdoche, New York."

"I'm just a little person, one person in a sea of many little people who are not aware of me," Brion's song begins.

Like Philtre in "Fade," Brion channels a feeling that isn't quite sad, it isn't quite soothing.

Terror and anger appear to linger just outside of the frame, along with joy and adulation, leaving the listener the emotionally detached feeling of levitating above their own body.

Although the lyrical content in "Fade" is significantly lighter than the meaning of life revealed in the words of "Little Person," the feeling the song leaves behind is startlingly similar.

The music video for "Fade," released this week, with its backwards footage, helps the song to achieve this similar sensation of emotional weightlessness.

It's a sensation that Kaufman could probably relate to.

Check out the music video for Philtre's "Fade" featuring Younha RIGHT HERE

Hear the Jon Brion song "Little Person" from the Charlie Kaufman film Synecdoche, New York" RIGHT HERE

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Philtre
Younha
Amoeba Culture
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