Conchis (Finland) – It will only hurt once (single/track from future album Gravity)

Finnish electronic alt-pop artist Conchis, who last appeared in NMC a couple of years ago, kindly sent us a press release concerning her second album, ‘Gravity’. That immediately attracted me. It’s the title of one of my favourite films, largely down to Sandra Bullock’s orbital performance, which I won’t go into here.

Conchis’ ‘Gravity’ arose out a different set of circumstances altogether, having been written during a period of “extreme physical collapse” due to ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome if you want a full diagnosis), when she was “unable to create in a traditional way.”

So she composed the entire album in her mind before regaining sufficient health to record it, which sounds quite remarkable.

The title, she says, “reflects the duality at the heart of the record – the force that keeps people grounded and the emotional weight that threatens to pull them under.” Hence that same tension runs throughout the album as she combines and contrasts opposites such as light and darkness, beauty and harshness, simplicity and complexity, motion and stagnation.

Now, that’s an interesting concept, if only an accidental one, to relate wave particle physics (scientific duality) to experiencing mixed feelings and sentiments as measured by time, circumstances, relationships, expectations and so on.

The sample track here, one of three singles already released, is ‘It will only hurt once’, which proposes that a clean break in a relationship may hurt once, but the converse, refusing to let go while that relationship decays like a radioactive particle, only delays the healing process.

“Don’t pick at the scab; don’t touch the stitch”, she opines. Then, “Make a clean cut, it won’t bleed much”.

And the wizardry of an exponent of electro-pop comes into its own as a synthetic main melody and assorted noises off, sinuous percussion, discordant rhythms and a dramatic time signature change in the bridge transport you into Sandra’s orbiting but doomed remnant of a Space Shuttle where she had to weigh up the duality of her own predicament – make a fiery, violent re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere, or die anyway.

‘It will only hurt once’ is a very well constructed song that is both poignant and thought provoking.

The album will be released on 13^th November.

The Spotify link for the single/track is here. Below that is a lyric video, which comes with the warning ‘This video may potentially trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy. Viewer discretion is advised.’

Find her on:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iamconchis