Sylvan Weekends’ single Young And Freewheeling hums with a kind of excited, youthful energy. It’s the feeling of late sunny summer evenings spent on a bike, discovering the world and marvelling at the sheer possibility as you begin to grow up.
It’s that youthful abandon Sylvan Weekends have attempted to capture here. In their own words:
“It’s a trip down memory lane, an invitation to remember the joy of pelting down the road full tilt, in a world before adult worries became real. It’s an invitation to return to that carefree way of being.”
Sylvan Weekends are a trio of musicians, each with a distinct background. Matthew plays folk, Freya instrumental-electro and Danial rock. Together, they create a hard-to-pin-down sound, but co-writers Matthew and Freya bring together their vocal harmonies to give the music the nostalgic sound at play here.
The aesthetic of Young And Freewheeling, a kind of electronic folksiness, reminds me of the likes of early Arcade Fire, and I’m From Barcelona. There is an apparent joy at the act of play itself. Vocal harmonies that weave in and out of one another, moments where the band seemingly try to out do one another in an attempt to play as quietly as possible. The music becomes what it embodies — a tribute to childhood that is child-like in its sound.
Young And Freewheeling is a beautiful depiction of innocence and possibility, yet in actuality the feeling it depicts seems almost tragically constrained by the need to grow, and grow older. The freedom is itself what leads to choices and consequence.