Olinda

Fall deeper and deeper into the lucid trance of Ontario’s Olinda as they plunge you straight into the depthless ends of REM, offering a sense of comfort in their newest single, ‘Dreams in Transit’. Gently rocking you back and forth with foggy lullabies of nostalgia-inducing ‘80s synth-pop, they have returned to follow up their debut release, ‘World Within’/‘The Chalice’.

Written to “capture the feeling of gazing out of a car window in motion”, ‘Dreams in Transit’ accomplishes just that. Frosty, skittering synth melodies patter and trickle down the windscreen, while Peter Burke’s weightless guitar lines flicker overhead with a luminous glow. The rhythmic pulses of gated reverb keep you cruising along towards Josh Klein’s slumberous vocal melodies. His voice stands calm amongst the city’s skyline, bearing witness to the uncoiling mysteries concealed within.

Time loses its grip, and the track glides through with a calming warmth, also brought by Czarina Mendoza and Judah Zakoor. It’s fuelled by a realisation and reflection on the trajectory of existence. It’s not about letting go of dreams; rather, it’s about readjusting them to better suit an ever-unfolding present. It’s not time to wake up, but to fall further down into Olinda’s growing crescendos.

Ethereal apparitions of the Cocteau Twins, Deerhunter, and even The Durutti Column emerge within this dreamlike realm; their almost familiar shapes endure metamorphic shifts as they dance about in this altered reality. Paired with B-side ‘Our Secret Garden’, ‘Dreams in Transit’ becomes a glistening reverie—a vivid hypnotic dance of emotion that pulsates with its raw intensity, yet, like all dreams, slips away with the dawn of a new day.

Olinda return with sophomore single ‘Dreams in Transit’, a pop-soaked paean to missed opportunity and latent ambition. Written and demoed in the stifling heat of an Ontario summer night, guitarist Peter Burke describes the song as an attempt to “capture the feeling of gazing out of a car window in motion.”

Following up from debut singles ‘World Within/The Chalice’, this release is paired with B-side ‘Our Secret Garden’; a romantic and woozy document of a relationship as it cools to an ember. Both songs are more guitar leaning than the band’s previous release, however Olinda’s signature synth driven sound underpins them, with each track seeming destined for the indie disco.

A Juno 106 synth line gives the lead single its infectious pulse along with an ever-forward momentum reminiscent of a cut from YMO’s 'Naughty Boys'. At its surface however, it’s an indie pop heater. A summery palate cleanse to 'Landfill Sprechgesang™' that exudes the same sweetness, nostalgia and eagerness to be loved, heard in the likes of The Smiths ‘Ask’ or Silvertone era Stone Roses. So English are the influences here, that they may just enter the long canon of North American bands mistaken to be from the British Isles (allow it...  more