We Speak Music
goodtoknow Unveils Debut EP ‘I’LL STAY’
There’s something beautifully untamed about I’LL STAY, the debut EP from goodtoknow — a new collective born from a late-night studio session in Mexico City that unfolded more like a slow-burning revelation than a formal recording. Rooted in gentle indie-pop and alternative folk, the five-track project feels like a moment suspended in amber: soft-edged, emotionally rich, and unwilling to conform to industry polish. It’s not trying to be perfect. And that’s precisely the point.
The collaboration between Paula Prieto, Benjamín Walker, Sir Hope, and Mariano Gillio doesn’t feel forced or strategized. Instead, the EP offers a rare kind of alchemy — voices and instruments sliding into one another with a natural ease, like four perspectives converging on the same emotional landscape. It’s fluid. It’s intuitive. And above all, it’s honest. The production stays close to the ground — warm acoustics, minimal percussion, and an emphasis on lyrical closeness — all drawing the listener in rather than pushing outward.
What’s striking is the level of restraint. Rather than chase the peaks typical of a debut statement, goodtoknow is content to sit in the in-between spaces: the ache before the letting go, the questions that linger after the conversation ends. The arrangements breathe slowly, prioritising feeling over formula. Vocals often feel like they’re being sung from across a quiet room — present, but never imposing.
It’s this emotional subtlety that sets I’LL STAY apart. There’s a quiet courage in its refusal to over-explain or over-produce. The lyrics are intimate but elliptical, drawing you in through tone and texture more than narrative. You don’t need to know the backstory to feel the weight of the moment — these songs speak through mood, atmosphere, and delicate turns of phrase that linger long after the final notes fade.
As a debut, I’LL STAY doesn’t shout for attention — it whispers truths that feel lived-in and necessary. It’s a project built not on ego, but on trust, offering a compelling reminder of what happens when artists let go of the need to define and simply allow something to be. goodtoknow is not a side project — it’s a living, breathing space. And with this EP, they’ve made something that matters.
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 5th 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.
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