Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.
𝙀𝙫𝙖𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙚 – 𝘽𝙚𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙘𝙚 𝙈𝙖𝙧𝙨𝙖𝙡𝙖
Charles brings the scars to the surface…
“It’s all in the past”. Such a comforting line we have frequently told ourselves and have been told by others. When a war is declared over, we all breathe a sigh of relief. It’s all in the past, we say, to console ourselves. The undetonated bombs are safely tucked away, to snooze until the next war (for there will indeed be a next war). The relentless carnage has finally relented, the nerves subside and the exhaustion overtakes. Because for once there is time for exhaustion. It is a good kind of exhaustion, though. A ceaselessness shattered by peace. The heartbeat slows to what one can only assume to be a normal one, and one lies down, not thinking about the future. The future is irrelevant right now. The present silence is all that matters. The thing is, we have a memory, and scars don’t always heal. The other overlooked flaw in this casual “It’s all in the past” utterance, is that the past often – nay – usually – nay – almost always affects the present and the future. The scars of war are far more than physical. The scars of anyone’s past are usually cemented in the mind. And it doesn’t just have to be something so publicly epic as war…
We’ve all been through trauma of one kind of another. The good times would never be so good without a certain modicum of the bad. The contrast in life is what makes it feel like life as opposed to an automatic factory of business. The problem with these past traumas is that they very often linger like a familiar odour that one just can’t quite place. If not dealt with in a proper, conscious manner, these lingerings can fester, bringing the past right into the present and most probably the future. Which ain’t nice. While said contrast makes a good thing better, we’d all (I’m sure) rather the bad to bugger off into the past for good. This could be an unresolved childhood trauma, a (lack of) money trauma, a past flood trauma, a longstanding phobia, or even just a general anxiety brought on by memories of the past. Put bluntly, one is lying to oneself when one says “it’s all fine”. We are what we were. And if we don’t like what we were, then the past needs to be addressed, laid to rest, and not hurled into an unlocked chest.
That empty comfort of “It’s all in the past” can often be as shallow as “It’s only water”. When the great tsunami of 2004 struck like a wet atomic bomb, did anyone dare to utter “It’s only water”…? I think not. So why do we so casually relegate things to the past when we all know that the past decides the present and the future? Our GOOD memories of the past have so much to do with our present, and we certainly don’t classify THOSE as “old and therefore irrelevant”. There is relevance to everything in the past. That’s why the past so often comes back to haunt. We mustn’t shove it deep down inside, but we mustn’t consciously forget it either. Instead it is important to keep it within our thoughts and memories, but not let it drag us down. Again I turn to war… We mourn the dead, lest we forget. But we mustn’t break down in tears at the memory. To quote the founder of the feet, we must “RISE UP!!”, but we mustn’t fight. THEY fought, and look where it got THEM. Which is one of the most important things about the past. To learn from it. We all make mistakes. We will continue to make mistakes. But if we learn from our past, those fresh mistakes will hopefully be different ones. Only once acknowledged, ingested, mulled over and learnt from, can these past traumas even begin to evaporate.
Which brings us ever so neatly into the world of Bernice Marsala. And what a world it IS! She’s the Nashville gal who just keeps on winning awards! The Josie Music Awards? She’s won them. The International Singer Songwriter Awards? She’s won them. The Infinity Music & Film Awards? She’s won them. The World Songwriting Awards? She’s… Yep, she’s won them too. While many artists either lose their ability to sustain a high standard in their field, or simply lose the motivation or the energy to keep trying, Bernice just keeps on pushing, and frankly just keeps on getting better and better. Her most recent claim to achievement is having been accepted as a Recording Academy Voting Member! For those who can’t quite place “Recording Academy” (though it will undoubtedly ring a bell), this is the posh term for what we habitually and affectionately call the Grammys. Ah, NOW you know! We so often talk about “claim to fame”, but surely a claim to achievement is so much more meaningful, no? Okay, it doesn’t rhyme, but fame should not be the absolute goal to end all goals. It should be money… Just kidding.
Having entirely ignored Bernice’s output for over a year, I can ignore no longer. Okay, Okay. I have not “ignored” her music in the last year, but it has not set foot in this here Corner for that period. I believe July 2025 was the last time she appeared here. I got some complaints about the same artists cropping up here, so I diversified. Actually, I got just one complaint and I have always been very careful to make sure the Corner retained a nice balance, so I never fully understood that one complaint. This same complaint also said that I very often review songs that I have produced and/or mixed – another thing that is simply not true. But either way, I like people to be happy, so I ended up actively shying away from reviewing songs I had had anything to do with. The thing is, this occasionally led to a bit of a problem. I am very fortunate in having some fabulously talented clients having written and recorded some very excellent songs. The problem was this: “Why should those with particularly good songs be automatically vetoed simply because either they appeared here a few months ago, or I had anything to do with their song’s making (or both)?” – To me, this seems pretty unfair. Nevertheless, I stuck to my conscious diversification, and will continue to do this (providing the diverse stays good). Occasionally, though, there comes a track that just cannot be ignored. Where it is so far and away the best song to be released within the week. Please clamp your lugholes around Bernice Marsala’s latest single, ‘Evaporate’.
Look, I can’t help it if I produce/mix for a living, and write reviews on the side (not for a living). Sometimes the twain shall meet. Yes, I produced and mixed the track. But I will not concentrate on this side of things here. It is there for you to hear. I want to touch more on the song, the vocals, the lyrics and the kalimba, for this is the crux of it all. Let’s start with the words. Bernice has spent much of her lyrics reckoning with the past. Not necessarily HER past, for she is an artist. An inventor of scenes and notions. Quite often I ask her where this or that song’s lyrics came from, expecting some story about her past, and more often than not she casually says she just came up with the idea, and that it’s not really anything to do with anything in her own life. Sometimes there is a similarity in context with a friend of hers, and sometimes it is just plucked from the ether. ‘Evaporate’ talks about the relationship between the past and the present, and how one is so often unable to “ditch” the past in order to have an unperturbed present. So true! So wise. She starts straight in with the line “You thought you stitched yourself up, but you walk around with open wounds”. It is perhaps her very best opening line, in being both arresting and relatable. “You’ve got your smile on, like it’s your refuge” – the second line connects your soul with her own. That personal heart of sadness. “Mustn’t grumble”, say the English, for fear of making a fuss. “Pretending won’t distract you from the pain, and avoiding it won’t make it go away”: it’s a third line that makes you sit back in your seat; not in nestled comfort but in dumbstruck awe of how she’s just got it so right. Your eyes are wide and your ears are tingling for more.
Vocally, Bernice is at her most confident yet. The sound is so open and effortless. This might perhaps be something to do with not having a little blob (baby) pushing up against her diaphragm (for she is now the proud owner of two blobs). But I think it is also simply to do with experience. With every song she learns. Not just what to do, but what she is capable of. The release preceding this was ‘Crazy One’ (an official collaboration avec moi). I asked her to sing one or two lines a specific way and she didn’t know if she could. It was something to do with a brief, fast run of notes (without slurring or pausing the notes) – not an easy technique. She was ready to let me down – that’s the spirit, girl! The thing is, EYE knew she could do it. First take…? Nailed it. Being a producer can be tricky, because it’s not all about making music on your own. It often involves asking (politely telling) the client to do something a certain way. I want to make the music the best it can be, but I also don’t want the client to come away resenting me. Hence tricky. But we two get on well, and there has never EVER been anything other than peachy roses between us. She eats the peaches, I smell the roses; job’s a good ‘un. I said I wouldn’t be talking about me… The thing is, I’m not. I’m talking about the producer’s role; because ultimately the artist and the finished song are the stars. It ain’t me, babe. Back to the voice. Bernice’s enunciation has always been “top hole”, but I feel like lately there is a certain natural crispness that is both clearer and smoother than ever before. Speaking of crispness, I was in a pub on Sunday and they were advertising Christmas bookings everywhere. In an August heatwave!! Sorry: crispness/Christmas. I digress.
Let’s get to the song itself. I’ll keep this bit brief for a reason. The song itself is purposely pretty simple in terms of chord changes. It needs to be. The focus of this song is the vocal, its lyrics and the general surrounding sound of it all (the production). I feel like if this song were to be any more complicated or “clever”, the focus might be softened or even blurred. And no one likes an astigmatism. Keeping the focus narrow in the lead while the production remains relatively wide, the song itself is the corrective lens achieving the ultimate goal – money (still kidding). If this song were to be sung with just piano accompaniment, it might seem almost like verse chorus verse chorus verse chorus. But due to the production and the many varying melodies sung throughout the lines, it’s a very unusual Intro, Verse 1A, Verse 1B, Chorus 1A, Verse 2A, Verse 2B, Chorus 2A, Bridge 1, Bridge 2, Chorus 3B, Outro. Hmmm… So maybe it’s not that simple after all. But it sounds and feels natural.
And finally, that kalimba. For those who don’t know what this is, you do. You will have seen one – maybe even played one – but you might not know what it is called. It’s a little wooden box that you hold in your palms, while your thumbs are free to pluck/flick various pitched metal tines. An African doohickey of sorts. This was the one thing Bernice sent me that I didn’t touch in the slightest. I knew not to. I just mixed it. I could clearly tell that this was to be the underlying motif of the whole piece. The drone. The crux. The ostinato. Call it what you will. This kalimba line is integral to everything. In fact, I believe this was the starting point from which the song was born. She also said not to touch it. Ahem. But I weren’t gunnoo, honest! This kalimba sums up everything about the song and even its cover font… It has its past roots, but is so utterly enriched in right now and beyond.
I do believe ‘Evaporate’ to be Bernice’s very best release to date. I could be wrong. You might prefer another. But either way, give it a listen, if only so you can decide for yourself.
It is no surprise that she just can’t help but win awards.
As to me and my past trauma, I’m English, therefore no such thing exists – he says, stuffing it deep, deep down. Nothing to see here!
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