Every week, the Milwaukee Music Premiere connects the city’s artists with our listening audience. If you’re an artist with a track you’d like us to debut exclusively on Radio Milwaukee, head over to our Music Submission page to learn how.
Considering his last name, you might wonder why Jorge Vallentine didn’t wait a couple weeks until a certain heart-shaped holiday to share a new song and — a few days later — the EP on which it appears. Listening to “Swimming in the Sun” from his VLNTYN project, it doesn’t take long to realize that might not have been the best fit.
Vallentine actually wrote the track several years ago while mired in a difficult relationship he said “had been built on toxic dynamics, a power imbalance, invalidation and codependence.” It was only much later that he returned to the song and discovered something that read like a plea for help.
“As that relationship finally unraveled towards its destructive end, the lyrics of hopelessness and restlessness started to reveal their meaning,” he shared with us. “The feelings that created them eventually led to a final escape and a promise not to return to those who hurt us and to examine how we hurt others, to avoid continuing the cycle of trauma any further.”
Knowing the backstory, the first three minutes or so feel pretty hopeless. Vallentine sounds like someone in search of a solution they know they’ll never find yet can’t stop themselves from fruitlessly looking:
I’m just a stranger, born to get lost
Born to cross bridges no one else would dare to cross
I am seeking, I am seeking light
Nowhere I lay down to sleep ever feels quite right
The mood matches those sentiments, with Vallentine’s brooding vocals sliding over Matt Froelich’s subtle guitarwork that occasionally gives way to full-blown solos. Along with drums and bass from Ryan Schmidt, the trio construct something that borders on sinister before Vallentine repeats a final line that offers a sliver of possibility for a happy ending: “Come and find me swimming in the sun.”
You’ll find the track at the top of this page and on 88Nine all day (6:30 and 10:30 a.m.; 2:30, 6:30 and 9:30 p.m.), as well as on VLNTYN’s The Darker Side of Being Human EP that’s set for release this summer.
