By Alex
The old friend of Mellah’s new track is not a forgotten school pal, an old lover, a childhood pet or a former colleague who keeps pestering you with requests to connect on LinkedIn. This old friend is something much darker, less concrete but no less important. The dubiously named old friend that pervades the melancholy haze of Mellah’s latest song is depression, reliable and familiar, dependable and dreadful.
A carpenter from South London, Mellah makes woozy, summery music that’s often undercut by themes of loss and sadness. His debut EP, Liminality, was released earlier this month and features the single ‘Round’, a stark and striking track that introduced Mellah as a one to watch for 2017.
‘Old Friend’ is more in keeping with the style of the Liminality EP with its gently strummed acoustic arrangement and Mellah’s distant, echoey vocals. The accompanying video is composed of a series of clips shot by Mellah during a trip through the US, the grainy picture quality complementing the track’s lo-fi sound. It’s a video that invokes nostalgia, albeit not one that is always pleasant, tainted by the desolate edge of the song’s lyrics that detail the familiar ache of living with depression.
