Maryland-based spiritual pop musician, Cynthia Angelica, is back with a personal story in her latest single “Flatline”. Written several years ago in the wake of a mass shooting, she marks a moment of suspended anxiety about whether her sister, who was in the vicinity at the time of the shooting, had made it out alive. Thankfully, she is still among us today, but the song serves as a reminder of the innate horror these all-too-frequent incidents.
With this release, Cynthia Angelica also marks the moment with dance-driven music video produced by DJ Alekna. Featuring a solo dancer (Armanda Braziūnaitė) drenched in dark shakes of blue, she dances in front of a brick wall with reaching gestures of desperation. Initiated from the gut-wrenching fear, many of the movements shift from moments of contraction to explosive release. Towards the end, we get a few moments of suspension as the dancer continues to reach through this blue, abstract void searching for something to hold onto. In the lyrics, Angelica reminds us that the thing we should be reaching for is hope, itself.
Building off the momentum of her debut single, “Grace”, Angelica wastes no time diving right into an electric surge of bass, drums, and piano full of the same desperation that can be seen in the dancing. There’s an urgency to her breathy vocals showing how she’s caught somewhere between grief and rage. “We’ve got to find an open door” she repeats through each chorus with a determined optimism that seems unbreakable.
“’Flatline’ was one of the last songs I wrote for the project, and it serves as a pair to ‘The Start,’ another song from my album,” shared Cynthia Angelica. “Symbolically, the songs represent death and life, a rebirth of sorts. Together, they remind us to hold on to hope even in the face of hopelessness. Throughout our history, we’ve found a way to do just that. And we will find a way again.”
“Flatline” is available now on major streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. The accompanying music video is also available on YouTube. Find this and more excellent music on the Alchemical Records Multigenre Mixture playlist on Spotify and YouTube.
Charlie Maybee is a dancer, musician, educator, and writer based in Charleston, South Carolina who currently teaches with the Dance Program at the College of Charleston. His primary work as an artist is with his performing collective, Polymath Performance Project, through which he makes interdisciplinary performance art that centers tap dance as the primary medium of expression and research. He also currently plays rhythm guitar for the Charleston-based punk band, Anergy, and releases music as a solo artist under the name Nox Eterna.
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Alchemical Records is a Washington, D.C. based music publication. We cover the Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Richmond, VA metro area music scenes, including band interviews, articles about your favorite musicians, new music and concert dates.
