Tape hiss becomes emotional texture on Jackie Santos‘ debut album opener, where the analog warmth of Brooklyn studio sessions provides the perfect medium for excavating the aftermath of asymmetrical love.
Collaborating with college friends including producer Quinn Devlin, Santos crafts something that feels both immediately personal and universally resonant—a question posed to the void that somehow manages to sound like an answer.
The track’s strength lies in its refusal to overdramatise heartbreak, instead allowing the natural interplay between Santos’ soulful vocal presence and the band’s understated arrangements to do the heavy lifting. Her Midwest roots meet NYC sophistication in a way that never feels calculated, whilst the tape-to-digital process adds a layer of nostalgic grain that complements rather than obscures the song’s emotional clarity. This is singer-songwriter craft operating at its most effective level, where technical proficiency serves genuine feeling rather than replacing it, suggesting that Santos’ upcoming debut album might offer something increasingly rare in contemporary music—songs that trust their own emotional intelligence.
