Haunting our speakers in ethereal melancholia is a singer-songwriter and dark folk recording artist Augustine with her introspective single, “Silence,” from her sophomore album, Neither Nightmares Nor Dreams Come True.
Augustine’s sound could be described as an intimate dark folk soundscape with influences from dark wave, rock, folk, experimental music, and medieval soundscapes. With raw, velvety vocals and delicate yet powerful instrumentation, Augustine is proving herself as an artist to watch in 2023.
In 2016, she released her debut album, The Devil in Me, which focused on obsessions over failure, dreaming, longing, and love. More recently, the chill-inducing songstress dropped her sophomore album, Neither Nightmares Nor Dreams Come True, featuring seven haunting songs like “Silence,” a somber anthem for the lone wanderer.
Drifting into “Silence,” the song softly opens with tender piano melodies that set the emotional, heartfelt, and dark tone. As Augustine’s breathy and soothing vocals float through our speakers, she chills the spine with the emotional and relatable lyricism of feeling isolated and alone due to being a child born from the “Silence.”
The entire piece is incredibly cinematic. Augustine’s instrumentals gradually expand from the background to create this melancholy lullaby any listener can appreciate. The haunting vocal melodies and bone-chilling instrumentals give this song an atmosphere like no other.
Free your soul from the silence with the help of the captivating stylings of Augustine in her recent release, “Silence,” from her sophomore album, Neither Nightmares Nor Dreams Come True, now available on all digital streaming platforms.
Welcome to BuzzMusic, Augustine. Congratulations on releasing your chilling sophomore album, Neither Nightmares Nor Dreams Come True. What was the source of inspiration behind this project?
This album, as its title maybe suggests, explores something that I call a “purgatory” state. The songs tell tales of feeling both stuck and bustling with desire and energy, anxious and confident, hopeful and desperate – both feelings being respectively so intense that they cancel each other. I daydream a lot – in fact, I spend most of my time daydreaming. Done so for as long as I can remember. And I fear many things, as well; I’m super anxious. With time, I’ve realized something that both comforts and saddens me: most of the things I fear never actually come to exist or manifest. The same goes for the things I long for. Or at least, when either bad or good things happen, they are never quite like I so intensely imagine them. My dreams and fears live in some interior, introspective space that never reaches reality. They are vivid but trapped.
How does track number two, “Silence,” tie into the theme and concept of Neither Nightmares Nor Dreams Come True?
“Silence” and all the songs of the album are written from this interior space of dreaming and fearing; they embody that feeling of both stagnation and vibration.
What message or theme did you want to convey within “Silence?" What did you want to get across to listeners?
A certain vulnerability, frailty. An incapacity to reach out.
Did you work alongside producers or musicians when formulating the haunting instrumentals for “Silence?" Who helped bring this song to life?
I worked with the record producer, Montreal-based singer-songwriter Antoine Corriveau on arranging the song. We tried a few things, building up our arrangement around the delicate, repetitive piano pattern that's playing through the whole song. Antoine suggested we work with violinist Melanie Bélair. She did the string arrangements and, phew, the first time I heard her work. It blew me away. She also contributed to “Slow Train,” “The Wish,” “Unhomey Home,” "Sleep," and “To the Victim” on the album. And then vocal arranger Rose Normandin joined it and truly brought things to another level yet again. She came up with very chilling, moving, and complex vocal arrangements, with drones and beautiful dissonance. Rose also contributed to "Slow Train," "Thérèse," and "Sleep" on the album. I feel very lucky that Antoine, Mélanie, and Rose worked with me on this song and the whole record.
How do Neither Nightmares Nor Dreams Come True contrast your debut album, The Devil in Me? What are the core differences between these two projects?
Even if I explore vulnerability and frailty a lot in the lyrics of the song, I feel like, musically, this album is less delicate than my first one. It remains quite introspective, but all the while being a bit more “in your face.” I feel like it is more expansive, and the approach is more direct. The Devil in Me was tiptoeing on sadness. This album feels like an interior, contained explosion.
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