Hyze – Water, Numbers, Hum18
I’m starting a new series today: music I’ve searched out, stumbled on, been pointed to, or heard from buskers who I paid to busk (and then lingered to get my money’s worth).
Housekeeping: Some of these posts may feature professional artists who are not household names (ie, in most of our households), and some may be full-on amateurs. None will be guitarists and crooners that friends or family have asked me to profile. I don’t do that. These are all artists I’ve followed or sought out for one reason or another.
First out of the chute is a Montreal-based singer-songwriter who goes under the name Hyze. This 22-year-old chanteuse is fully original and her musical provenance points, in spirit, to likes of Sarah McLachlan, Beth Orton, Tori Amos, Lisa Loeb, and their ample ripplage.
Three things will distract you in this collection. First, the guitar’s intonation on the first song, Water, is a bit pitchy, and second, the recording quality is not demo-grade. That’s the judgy part of this post.
The third distraction is why you’ll want to hear this more than a couple of times. The voice is exceptional.
In the world of alt-pop where perfect pitch is no longer table stakes, Hyze is dead on with her tuning. Add to that the lost art of expressive vibrato (against Mainstreet’s wild, showy warbling), and we have here a throwback artisan whose voice lends a perfect sonority to her painfully confessional songs.
The first of these, Water, is almost two songs in a single story, an alternating two-section ABABA, now arpeggiated and comfort-seeking in her mid-register (“Lullaby, take me home…”), now declarative and full-voiced over syncopated strums
This isn’t healthy, this isn’t who I am
Not in my shadow, not in my silhouette
Great tonal awareness here, too: while the key sig never changes, the first, more wistful A section is ambiguously relative-major and -minor. But the forceful B section is squarely minor. It means business, and this is where the musical message sits.
Voice and guitar partnership are on fuller display in the middle piece, Numbers. It’s a very similar formal pattern to Water, but the contents are stickier in the ear. A great guitar hook with its hero on the lowest string supports a melisamatic voice that carries brilliantly in the B section.
The third of the set is the one I fell in love with. Hum18 is a 143-second vignette with a lovely, colourful accompaniment and a slow breezy melody. The leaky guitar that dribbles over top of the voice reminds me of the brilliant work of John Mayer on Stop this Train from Continuum (2008). Add to this that enchanting voice, and the whole of the song hearkens to some of the best music that Lisa Loeb ever recorded on her signature Tails album (Snow Day has a similar groove). When it comes to musical excellence, things like this don’t just happen by fluke; Hum18 is one solid piece of business.
Hyze transcends primary major and minor chords, kindergarten lyrical rhymes and the garden variety verse-chorus shell to stick it all into. There’s just something so resolutely natural about it. In a time and world where most solo acts either overreach their skills or just simply can’t get out of their own way, Hyze is just happy to just do Hyze. Listen or don’t.
I’m glad I listened.
