The pre-order for Vehlinggo Presents: 5 Years is finally here and with it I bring you a beautiful, previously unreleased song from The Midnight entitled “Sometimes She Smiles.”
I was living in Santa Monica, four blocks from the ocean. I’d been working a lot, but there wasn’t much happening with music. I left my then-fiancée in the apartment and took a walk to reflect on my momentary unhappiness, and on a park bench at Ashland and Barnard Way I wrote the lyrics — not intending it to be a song — to “Sometimes She Smiles.” I think it was an unconscious drive to recalibrate the Doing/Knowing part of me (that always seems to lead) with the Being/Feeling part of myself (that I always seem to be lacking).
Alternatively, it could just be a fictional conversation between me and my wife about my stubbornness. Either way, the bones that are breaking in his head are always mine, and the more evolved response (which is usually my wife’s) is just to smile, knowingly. This loop was kicking around Tim’s hard drive around the time that Days of Thunder was coming together.
If you’re in Europe right now, catch The Midnight on tour.
Learn More about Vehlinggo Presents: 5 Years
The full album comes out on Nov. 1 on Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music, and many other digital platforms. You can pre-order it now on Bandcamp and get “Sometimes She Smiles” along with earlier single “The Magic Hour” from Parallels.
Vehlinggo Presents: 5 Years features new or previously unreleased tracks from a group of artists who over the past five years have helped make Vehlinggo what it is today. The album is a celebration of this landmark anniversary and the work of those artists, but it’s also an opportunity for listeners to have a bunch of great new music from artists they admire all in one place.
“The album is structured like a soundtrack to an imaginary film…”
Artists on this release (in alphabetical order; many familiar names who have graced the pages and podcast episodes of Vehlinggo):
- Anoraak
- Betamaxx
- Bunny X
- Deadly Avenger
- Diamond Field & Dana Jean Phoenix
- FM Attack
- Forgotten Illusions
- Highway Superstar (feat. Zoe Polanski)
- In Mirrors
- Johan Agebjorn, Tom Hooker & Wolfram
- Le Matos
- Maethelvin
- Mecha Maiko
- Metavari
- The Midnight
- Parallels
- VH x RR (Von Hertzog and Rob Rowe).
The musicians on the album come from a variety of genres, such as synth-pop, Italo Disco, synthwave, nu-disco, French disco, and film and TV scores (real or imagined). Some are part of storied recording families that have heavily influenced the landscape, such as Italians Do It Better, the Valerie Collective, and the Rosso Corsa Collective, and others are regulars on extraordinary labels like MONDO/Death Waltz, Burning Witches, and One Way Static. Others might not be tied to a specific label, but they’re building movements that are reverberating across the spectrum. And some are even returning with new projects or collaborations after helping lay the groundwork decades ago.
However you frame it, the cadre of souls who’ve contributed to this project are earnest, kind, and talented, and their music promises a beautiful and engaging experience.
The album is structured like a soundtrack to an imaginary film, so any given song’s placement on the track list corresponds to its role in the narrative of the unrealized film. Keep that in mind as you dive in deep.
Thank you for reading Vehlinggo‘s interviews and reviews, listening to the podcasts and mixes, and wearing the logo tees in highly photogenic circumstances. Your support is so profoundly meaningful!
Enjoy the album!
