Imagine a lost soul standing at the edge of the wide, open ocean.
As they’re standing there meditating on the steady rhythm of the waves and feeling the heavy gusts of wind pull and push against their frame, they think of the one they lost. What sounds like a distant alarm is chiming somewhere far away, and then accompanied by mellow guitar strums, Gerdie’s serene voice sings the opening lines:
“I’ve been combing shores at a thankful pace/ All along a coast of grave mistakes.”

In his latest single, “We Pick Things Up”, there is never a moment of obvious intensity. Everything stays just under the easy-going surface provided by the sparse instrumentation: the consistent strumming of an acoustic guitar, a slightly detuned piano, and later an individual electric guitar line threaded carefully in between the sung melody. Gerdie’s own vocals also stay ever so calm, quiet and meditative.
And yet, the song unsettles.
“It’s great, how long it’s been this way/ Hey, it’s good to feel your face, this way.”
It’s as if the song exists slightly outside our normal, physical realm. All the elements on their own are not particularly striking but put together in combination with Gerdie’s deeply ethereal voice, we get something exquisite, tragic and peculiar.

The second chorus drives deeper into a realm beyond our physical world, with stronger dissonances and detuned lines. And then at the end of the song, before we know it – we’ve arrived with Gerdie standing alongside the ocean as the music twirls deeper and deeper into a thick, psychedelic musical fog.

Best listened to while: doing absolutely nothing, this is one of those “just sit your butt down and listen, you forever distracted millennial.”

Listen for this moment: 03:03 the final music postlude where all the bizarre musical elements combine into a space where we get to reflect on everything the song made us feel

Follow Gerdie here