Building from heartfelt folk steadiness into an expressive punch of ardency, “martyr” is a standout track from Alex Kehm. The Middletown, Rhode Island-based queer transgender singer, songwriter, and producer enamors with a sound that delights across both its soft introspections and textural expanses, particularly as twangy guitars bolster multi-layered vocal enthrallment past the three-minute turn.
“It’s so covert, it must be over,” their vocals ascend into a final ghostly sequence, bringing back the twangy guitars and self-sacrificial lyrical prowess (“you could cut off all my limbs”), and into a lovely outro. The track is described as “an intimate exploration of the self-erasing tendencies in toxic or one-sided relationships.”
Stream the entirety of the excellent cowboy’s gonna do it EP, below:
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This and other tracks featured this month can be streamed on the updating Obscure Sound’s ‘Emerging Singles’ Spotify playlist.
