We Speak Music

ASH Delivers Masterful Debut Tune ‘Infatuated’

Published

2 years ago

July 30, 2024

ASH makes a remarkable debut with her single “Infatuated,” displaying her smart composition, production, and dramatic performing abilities. This song perfectly expresses the terrible human experience of falling in love with someone who isn’t truly the right fit for you. A strong bass groove serves as the single’s main structural element, while ominous harmonies and slick synthesisers come and go. Delicate rhythms propel the composition forward, while ASH’s entrancing melodic lines float over distorted guitar tones.

Speaking on the thematic narrative of ‘Infatuated’, ASH says, “Everyone remembers when they were young and eager to experience love for the first time, and I think everyone also remembers how consuming that innocent desire could be. ‘Infatuated’ comes from that unrelenting desire, but more specifically from the heart-wrenching experience of when your first partner is your first love, but you’re not theirs. For those who can relate to this, it’s a painfully different kind of first love — a kind in which you start experiencing your first love and first heartbreak pretty much simultaneously. ‘Infatuated’ captures how paralyzing that is.”

ASH’s smooth, intoxicating vocals meander through the song, creating a texture that perfectly complements her lyrical exploration of obsession, vulnerability, and despondence. This dynamic interplay between sound and meaning highlights ASH’s distinct creative intuition and her exceptional ability to illustrate emotion with sensitivity and vividness.

With ‘Infatuated’s debut, ASH shares a beautifully illuminating first track, setting the stage for her promising artistic journey. Speaking on the creative process of ‘Infatuated’, ASH shares, “‘Infatuated’ was the first real track I ever made while I was teaching myself how to produce, so I was really learning what my creative process was for the first time. I now know that every song’s process can be quite different for me, but the most constant thing has been that I need to sonically establish a mood first. For this song, it all began with that repeating bass line. It’s so simple but it immediately evoked such a powerful sinking, heavy feeling. From there it was just about leaning into that emotion in my writing and production until it formed its own world.”

ASH’s debut single is a testament to her ability to transform personal experiences into universal themes, resonating with listeners through both sound and story. ‘Infatuated’ not only marks the beginning of her musical career but also promises an exciting future for this talented artist.

We Speak Music

Michele Ducci teases new album with uplifting indie single ‘Woman Like You’

Published

21 hours ago

April 17, 2026

Don Reed

Michele Ducci has unveiled the second single, ‘Woman Like You’, from his forthcoming album and animated film ‘Snail in the Clouds’.

‘Woman Like You’ pairs bright distorted electric guitar with an electronic drumbeat, adding in Ducci’s soulful vocals and a catchy uplifting chorus with Letizia Mandoleisi’s sweet vocal harmonies. A vintage organ pedalboard operated by Ducci simultaneously generates chords, bass and rhythm, like a one-man band. Shane Kennedy (Girl in the Year Above) joins in on guitar. Simon Milner (Is Tropical, Ysing) recorded and produced the track at his 4am Studios in London.

The album and film tell the story of a planet called ‘Snail’, inhabited by hybrids – primarily a mixture between scorpions, snails and humans – who lead a life according to the style of Pythagoras, devoted to music. There is also a cloud man named Agostos, a writer of musical operettas, who together with a talking smoke machine called Doctor Subtilis, begins to kill all hybrids, targeting in particular the hybrid musician Diodoros and his band, in an effort to steal the ark of melodies, an ancient ship that allows the whole planet to survive with music and joy.

The video for the single, created and animated by Ducci and Mandoleisi, delves further into the realm of planet ‘Snail’:

Says Ducci, “The ark of melodies, after various attempts, finally starts to work and fly in the planet Snail, while the shady Doc. Sub. and Agostos, with their platoon of soldiers made of foggy smoke, spy the miracle, planning to steal the ark for their evil and tyrannical purposes.”

About the track, Michele says, “I wrote this song for my love Letizia. Love seen from the mind is the sound we make. Sound is the love of matter.

We used a Technics synthesizer organ from a flea market. I tried to find a mood that was right for the song and I started using the bass of the pedal board together with the synth and the drums, and it was magical to hear the song reveal itself all coming from a single instrument. Leti was singing with me and we recorded everything live in one shot. Then we made Shane do the guitar flight, as if he came out of the window. The idea was to maintain disproportions, guitar thrust and synth drum thinness a la Haroumi Hosono, so as to create an estrangement, but naturally: it’s about how I listen, with close up something that captures me in its nuance as element of a larger orchestra somewhere. I’m glad we decided in the studio with Simon to use the layers of arrangement as the close-ups in the cinema; they look like strange enlargements that perch on parts of a mutated orchestra. I’m happy to come back with this love song at a time when everything seems to opt, even my labor in managing the flows of selfishness that have poured out on me while doing this album, for the sound of war. I’m here happy to be able to say that the sound of love always wins as did for me. Snail in the clouds is one of the most important works in my life and I am glad to start from pure love for this album that is my son.”

The album and full-length film will be released on the 5^th of June on Monotreme Records.

Michele and Letizia’s previous musical short film, ‘The Great Book of Nature’, is an official selection for the 2026 Venice Shorts Film Festival.