I Won’t Leave You

Bonobo “Rosewood”

The first two thirds of “Rosewood” are grounded in warm Fender Rhodes chords that repeat a simple lulling groove before shifting gears into a very chill sort of acid house finale. The intensity picks up and catharsis is provided but Bonobo never really moves the song out of a deliberately vague melancholy. The vocal samples convey regret and heartbreak but it’s all loosely sketched out, evoking a limbo state of being not quite outside the emotional blast radius of something that’s rattled you to the core. The trajectory of the song suggests a move towards momentary escape or moving on completely, but the arc is just not bending towards a full recovery.

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