Fresh from the relative serenity of his bedroom studio in the Basque Country, 22-year-old multi-instrumentalist JONSOR has revealed "Aingerua," a glistening single that stands as a beautiful gateway between the glory of progressive rock's golden years and the reflective landscapes of the present day. The song is an ethereal gem from his debut album "ATSEGINEAN ATSEKABE," which poetically translates to "sadness inside the joy." And as its title implies, "Aingerua" is a demonstration of contradictory beauty.
Sung entirely in Euskera, the Basque language "Aingerua" wafts its way into the listener's ear like a warm apparition. It begins with reverb-kissed ripples of delicate guitar arpeggios that echo through its dreamy audio frame, the fingers of groups such as Itoiz and early Genesis visible. JONSOR slowly builds texture with the soul of an artisan. Soon enough, all of that gives way to synths and elaborate rhythms that continue to hint at the song's prog-rock DNA. JONSOR creates a haunting yet earnest sound with his voice hovering above the mix, a ghostly narrator leading us through the song's emotional terrain. The lyrics are still shrouded in Euskera for many listeners, but the emotion is purely human, achingly melancholic, yet hopeful.
It's not just the technical prowess behind "Aingerua" that is striking but also the heart that went into it. Each note sounds personal, almost sacred, as if we have access to a diary made of sound. And perhaps we did, after all, write the whole record ourselves. It's a solitary cavalcade conducted by a guitar-obsessed 12-year-old trapped in the head and body of a post-millennial technology freak who feels about a hundred years old.