Le Sonic (feat. Robert Lee) “Any Moment” (SINGLE)

Tempo can say it all in the right setting, and from where I sit it’s the most important feature we can break down in the new single “Any Moment” by Le Sonic and Robert Lee. Lee is the feature on this track, but make no mistake about it – his place in the arrangement is what puts the sonic cherry on top for this performance. Between the vocal harmony and the plodding pace of the singular verse – literally just the title of the song repeated in the lustiest of tones possible – the singer, the bassline, and the drums create a path through the darkness down which the piano keys will follow. Trailing into a thick forest of optimistic tonality, these instruments cast worry and doubt in the audience to the roadside, pressing us all forward towards a catharsis so rarely acquired from mainstream pop right now.

URL: https://www.lesonictheband.com/

The greatest harmony in “Any Moment” is one that is supported by the collective more than it is our singer himself; truthfully, I don’t think there is any describing this piece without using a word like ‘physicality,’ but not in the brutish, heavy metal sense of the term. This bass has some brawn to it, and while it isn’t muscling us away from a guitar solo, it’s leaning in closer and begging for us to appreciate its textural output. The vocal is similarly invasive, but only to the extent of making us want to turn up the volume and get lost in the haze of a harmony that overtakes both speakers at once.

Despite the casual nature of the groove here, it constantly feels like we’re approaching something in “Any Moment,” as if the percussion is inching us toward a climax too powerful for any of the individual melodic components to produce on their own. This never devolves into aimless urgency, as has been the case in some of the crossover jazz I’ve been listening to for the last eight months, but instead finds a release in the final thirty seconds of the song that I would call postmodern were the aesthetic not being repurposed as much as it is in rock right now. Le Sonic employ postmodernity in the old-school sense and, with a little help from Robert Lee, turn it into a trend I might be able to get behind.

DOWNLOAD LINK: https://promo.theorchard.com/wspWkSkDNhx1EO8LmOmo

If you haven’t checked out Le Sonic yet, this might be the right single to start with this summer, as “Any Moment” brings their best qualities to the forefront of the mix and lets listeners bask in the superiority of their style pomp-free. There’s an argument to be made that progressive jazz recordings like this one are going to outpace the puritanical content we see in the American underground by the time this decade has come to an end, but personally, I don’t see where both couldn’t coexist – especially given that what acts like Le Sonic do has so much to do with following the template of the old guard. Regardless, what they’ve got in “Any Moment” is can’t-miss listening for sure.

Mark Druery