London-based emerging artist Stephan Folkes is back with a rousing new single, "It's All Within Time (Travelling Through the Stars)," a song that's at once intimate and timelessly cosmic. Right from the opening note, Folkes envelops audiences in an astonishing atmospheric profile infused with his hallmark eclectic soundscapes and a message that hits home in the most personal way.
This track is an invitation, whispering, or more bluntly, nudging. Stephan invites us to meditate on difficult times, what we learn from them, and how light we become when we accept the passage of time. There's something soft and something empowering threaded through the track, a dual statement that reminds us that growth is often the silent reward of consistency.
Folkes's music showcases this skill, not just as a singer-songwriter, but also as a sound engineer and producer. Crucial to the album's sound is an equilibrium between subtle textures and passages of transcendent musical clarity, creating an atmosphere that is both earthbound and transcendent. From the velvety melodic lines to the rhythmic foundation, it feels as though every bit of the track was purposefully constructed to resemble the push and pull of life's journey. It's a song that you could feel as much as you could hear.
What makes "It's All Within Time (Travelling Through the Stars)" uniquely exciting, though, is not its specificity. Though deeply personal, the track is bigger than the sum of its individual parts, striving for something cosmic in its ambitions. Folkes can tackle stories of endurance, self-discovery, and empowerment without ever getting lost in abstraction. Instead, he builds a bridge from introspection to shared human experience, which turns the tense-holding prayer the song becomes into a comforting friend for those traveling their own path.
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