Written by: Dave Cantrell

For this writer, one of the aspects of this long-standing gig here at SEM meshing with the nearly as long-standing darkwave radio show I host on XRAY FM (Songs From Under The Floorboard) out of Portland OR is, well, actually two-fold: On the one hand, when it comes to rising artists in that incestuous genre trio up there in the title line, pretty much nothing of any note escapes one’s notice and on the other, when something is as entrancingly irresistible as the Julia Gaeta single we have before us today the fact I’m more or less surrounded by for at least a week or so guarantees that I’ll probably be having a pretty damn nice week. It is, in short, a win-win, and given how the world tends to look when I glance in any direction not connected to music (or the arts in general), one can’t have enough of those.

Taken from Gaeta’s upcoming (and wonderfully-titled) debut EP Blur Divine, “Hangin’ On A Dream” (releasing this Thursday April 25th on à La Carte) could not more represent the overall mood of that debut, drenched as it is in a kind of Euro-gestalt thrall that seduces even as it challenges our expectations of what such a single should sound like. Yes, it has a languid air about it but it’s an electrified one, like some sort of perversely wonderful cross between the “la vague froide” scene in late 70s/early 80s France and a perfectly off-kilter pop decadance that has us imagining what it might have sounded like had Jane Birkin been born a decade later. But really, the magic of a single like this, that carries itself with something of a transcendent ease, is that we’ll all have our own interpretations of what inspired its sound even as it evades any simple explanation as to pedigree. Our guess is that very quality is exactly the one that ensures a degree of timelessness, and for Ms Gaeta to have hit that target right out of the gate is really nothing short of astonishing and I’m left reiterating, how damn great is it to have a gig wherein you’re turned on to such enchanting songcraft. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a publicist to go thank. Meanwhile, have a listen then click here to grab the EP before it’s gone.