You've heard this before
You're all too familiar with moments like these - that is, instances where there were simply no words to adequately describe them. In a world where everyone is compelled to share every detail of their life via some social medium, there still exist those moments that are simply too powerful and gratifying to share with others. With their debut release, tide/edit deliver a listening experience pairing nostalgia with subtlety, and the feelings accompanying various memories are never forced upon you. tide/edit’s music never tells you what you
should feel. It’s exceptional for a band to give you incentive to let your mind stray, even to the point of becoming detached from the song itself, without worrying about whether or not it ultimately contributes to ‘getting’ the artist’s vision.
tide/edit are an instrumental math band from the Philippines, and on
Foreign Languages they delicately balance instrumental mastery with poignancy. It's rare for a band of their ilk to showcase such crisp musicality alongside any sort of discernible emotion, but the quartet have managed to set themselves apart. As you listen to
Foreign Languages you could easily forget you're listening to a math rock band. Instead, you might see yourself drawing comparisons to those all-too-fleeting seconds that you nearly forgot. You didn't record them. At the time they felt so innocuous you felt no immediate urge to document them. We often remember the first time our love interest finally said 'yes', but perhaps you forgot how good it felt the second time around. "Another Yes" is a track that exhibits youthful wonder and simple enlightenment not dissimilar to this. Maybe you fail to recall how you used to play the best parts of your day repeatedly in your head, and somehow it remained just as effective. "Haiyan" captures this effect beautifully as the song gives way to a repetitious melody that maintains its sentimental tone as it progresses. It’s all too familiar - those nights spent staring incessantly at the stucco ceiling, as my mind projected on it the one bearable part of whatever day. In retrospect, I don’t really remember what these were, but I was under the impression that playing them in a loop would somehow tip the scales of significance, cancelling out the bad.
These moments are my own - but fear not, you'll find yours. Foreign as tide/edit may be, their language is universal indeed. The ability to convey emotions and stir up memories through the use of ethereal tones is nothing to be scoffed at, and tide/edit grant the bonus of accompanying this with sharp instrumentation. Additionally - coming from someone who has the tendency to block out negative past experiences - it is comforting to not only be reminded of the positive memories, but actually be encouraged to conjure them. It’s empowering.
