“Halfway Love” by Glasstempo & Ayelle is truly a global creation – between the two artists they share a whole palette of cultures including Swedish, Iranian, Australian, Philippian and Spanish. Sheesh…and the Tonemamas thought we were globally cultured when we finally managed to eat sushi with chopsticks instead of a fork. The collaboration making up trilingual songwriter and vocalist Ayelle and Glasstempo have graciously blessed our ears with a crossover track that takes crossing over borders to another level, and all we can say is “Attraversiamo!” (a last-ditched attempt of the Tonemamas to show off our own multiculturalism…”Eat, Pray, Love” anyone?)
This neo-soul, contemporary R&B track makes a defiant stand against “halfway love” as Ayelle’s perfectly polished voice croons, “Baby, I don’t settle for halfway love”. You’re either in or you’re out, and after listening to this track we can’t imagine how anyone would opt for ‘out’. The production is smoother than sunshine shimmering on the rolling waves of an ocean and if you spend three seconds imagining that metaphor you’ll be like, “Damn, that is smooth”. But then around the 2:40 timestamp the musical duo break the track down even further into a shimmier (not a word), more sunshiney (also not a word), slow-motion ocean wave (words) and we’re like, “Geesh, it’s so smooth they’re inspiring a whole new vocabulary.” We are giving nothing but full love to this track, and if anyone dares show halfway love to this song we’ll throw you into the shimmy (still not a word), sunshiney (also, still not a word) slow-motion ocean wave (words).
Best listened to while: Scrolling through your contacts and deleting all the “halfway” lovers #thankunext
Listen for this moment: We’ve already said it, but we’ll say it again…that second breakdown at 2:40 is enough to leave your whole neo-soul shattered in the best way