“Water that Comes and Goes” is the latest release by Sofabed, an outstanding Japanese band based in Tokyo. It’s their third full-length release and first piece of work this year, arriving after two excellent albums released in 2019 and 2024. It’s one of those records that immediately wraps around your listening apparatus and refuses to let go, so you’ll have a pleasant listening experience that lasts. Lyrically and thematically, “Water that Comes and Goes” creates a shelter that evokes nostalgia while simultaneously examining the present and looking into the future. It’s a contemplative record that paints vivid sonic imageries by tackling themes of love, relationships, friendships, different sentiments, moods, situations, and circumstances, so it’s a highly relatable material that will unquestionably resonate with the broader auditorium. Sonically, “Water that Comes and Goes” is equally complex as its lyrical content. The band explores different music genres and combines them into a fine piece of sonic artistry. Perhaps indie comes to mind first, but you’ll unquestionably notice how some of the finest sonic ingredients borrowed from jazz, alternative pop, art pop, art rock, soft rock, downtempo, cinematic ambient, experimental, and avant-garde music found their way into this sonic equation. Sofabed use all these additional elements as more than necessary enhancements, accentuations, decorations, and other details to uplift their latest material to an entirely new level while simultaneously remaining loyal to the primary sonic direction. Therefore, these experimentations with many different but complementary styles resulted in a catchy, memorable, engaging, mesmerizing collection of songs that will resonate not only with indie music fans but also those listeners looking for some fresh, unique, innovative, versatile, fascinating sound.
As soon as you press play, the calm, soothing, relaxing, ethereal, otherwordly ambiance grabs you by the collar and refuses to let go. The musicians involved in Sofabed wanted to create an album that immediately transport you to the past where you can sit down, relax, and question your actions. They shape such cinematic scenery while diving deep into experimentation and contemplation while learning those familiar indie waters that hold everything together. Exploring so many directions at once might be so difficult for many songwriters and musicians, but not for Sofabed. Quite the contrary, they feel so comfortable in this world, built upon lush instrumentations and calm vocal harmonies. Each composition arrives with a perfect structure, garnered with many profoundly detailed segments, brilliant ideas, and marvelous orchestrations. Still, their complexity doesn’t sacrifice the relaxing, nearly cathartic atmosphere where listeners feel so comfortable. The vocals act as a centerpiece, commanding attention, elevating everything to new heights, and guiding the listening apparatus from scratch to finish with precision and finesse. These soulful, passionate, sincere, confident, emotional, and powerful vocal harmonies seamlessly balance between high, mid, and low notes, emphasizing everything these experienced musicians intended to achieve with their latest album. Besides providing more than enough emotional depth to these songs, the vocals decorate each segment and instrumentation, spicing things up and providing more complexity to an already intricate material.
Sofabed incorporated so many instrumentations into these songs, shaping a perfect backdrop for all the vocals to shine upon. The rich and luxuriant synths and keys are probably the most dominant ones in the mix, building up a colossal sonic structure that perhaps dominates but doesn’t overwhelm the remainder of the instrumentation at all. They implemented all these instrumentations with such a style, that you’ll reveal more details, nuances, and accentuations with each new listen. You’ll notice how the comprehensive collection built upon lush sequences, chord progressions, harmonies, melodies, themes, and leads creates a calm, soothing, relaxing, otherworldy ambiance worth repeating over and over again. Each layer works to the advantage of these tracks without overlapping, showcasing the tremendous dedication to the craft these highly skilled musicians invested in this album. Also, it’s nearly mindblowing how all these soundscapes match vocally harmoniously. Besides the melodic side, Sofabed also paid attention to its experimental side, incorporating many progressive, jazzy, or entirely avant-garde instrumentations in particular segments. Of course, Sofabed also thought about the other instrumentations, so you’ll unquestionably stumble upon equally intricate, vividly hearable, warm-sounding basslines, rumbling beneath all those synth layers and providing more than necessary heaviness, clarity, and depth while binding all those orchestrations with the rhythmic patterns. These low-ends are luxuriant, dense, deep, warm, and heavy, contributing more power to this collection of songs. Like the remainder of the orchestrations, the drumming performance is also complex and incredible. Levitating from simplistic rhythmic patterns to entirely intricate, odd-time, jazzy, progressive experimentations, these drumming sequences keep everything in line while dictating the groove and tempo. The entire amalgam of amazing, tastefully assembled, flawlessly performed, well-accentuated beats, breaks, fills, and other percussive acrobatics makes this epic sonic journey uniform. However, those explorations in jazz and avant-garde allow these folks to completely reconstruct their music direction.
“Water that Comes and Goes” is a jazz-infused indie masterpiece that entirely breaks the rules and shapeshifts the boundaries of conventional music. Their ideas and musicianship shine during each song, showcasing their tremendous experience, knowledge, creativity, talent, and skills. It’s unquestionably one of the finest works you’ll hear this year. Therefore, you should immediately place “Water that Comes and Goes” on your music radar, because it will become your favorite record of the year. The album is available on all streaming platforms. Don’t miss it!
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