The most interesting songs will always be the ones that take you on a journey through the music, which is exactly what Mandy, Indiana do with their latest single ‘Injury Detail’. It is fascinating to listen to the song grow into the dance track that it is at the end and it manages to tell a kind of story without having a typical lyrical structure.
The vocalist of Mandy, Indiana (Valentine Caulfield) discussed the song saying “‘Injury Detail’ was inspired by the idea of being trapped in a liminal space, with the guitars creating a seemingly limitless and undefined landscape. The vocals act as a guide to possible salvation, or perhaps something of a more sinister intent,”, the use of the organ and the white noise sounds really helps bring this vision to life. Just by listening to it you can understand what they were going for when making this and you can imagine it being in some kind of ‘dystopian video game’, which is another thing which inspired the song. This whole setting and idea of being trapped in a liminal space is contrasted by the drums which make the song feel lighter and turn it more into a dance track. All together though, it works incredibly well and the white noise makes it into something really unique.
The vocals being in French, Caulfield’s native language, also makes the song more interesting as well as the way they are sung as it is not in a typical lyrical structure, instead just being made to fit over the instrumental and fill the song out. However, it does work very well, everything sounds like it goes together and it does not sound like anything is there just to make the song sound bigger or to fill in empty space, more just to build up parts of the song. Also, the effects put on the vocals emphasise the inspiration of the song incredibly well, it makes it sound kind of dream-like in a more creepy and dystopian way. Overall, the production on the whole song is incredibly impressive and makes it sound clean while still giving the single a somewhat spine chilling build by the time you reach 2 and a half minutes into the song.
This is one of the most interesting songs I have listened to recently and I am sure that the other songs on their album will be just as experimental and enticing to listen to.