SOMYO
LEYLINES
On LEYLINES, SOMYO turns electronic pop into an evocative soundscape simmering with soft-focus euphoria, late-night longing, and melodic precision. The project gathers seven tracks into a sleek, emotionally generous EP, one that treats the dance floor as an escape into another world.
Formerly releasing music as Barrett Crake, the artist reemerged after relocating from Los Angeles to Lisbon, a move that seems to have widened the palette of his sound. Even the name SOMYO, a combination of Portuguese words for sound and dream, expresses his new sonic direction: music that hovers while pushing forward.
It’s a sound that has already found an audience. SOMYO has accumulated millions of streams, collaborated across borders, and steadily refined a style that favors shimmering surfaces over bombast and feeling over superficiality. The songs are engineered carefully enough for headphones, where their details, the glassy synth textures, the patient builds, the emotional, tonal nuances, can fully expand and breathe.
The EP opens with “FORGET TO LOVE,” which distills heartbreak into heady dance motion. Its central ache is familiar, trying to move past a connection that still glows in memory. The melody rides a warm pulse and clean harmonic tones that make emotional conflict feel aerodynamic.
“WHISPERS,” featuring Hildur Ottilia, is the EP’s emotional center of gravity. The track moves with a hushed confidence, all on lustrous house textures and nocturnal sighs, while Hildur’s voice arrives like a beam of light through the fog, cool, weightless, and quietly beckoning. It’s a song about surrender that never loses control.
“RIPTIDE” presses into elegant movement. Synths curl and ebb, the rhythm keeps tightening its grip, and the vocals carry just enough pressure to make the song feel alive from the inside out. The resulting sensation is immersive, a track that simultaneously captures disorientation and release.
By the time “AWAKE” arrives, LEYLINES has fully established its magnetic appeal. This is dance music that gleams without becoming soulless. “AWAKE” blends a body-moving beat with luminous synth textures, blurring reality and dreaminess into a surreal setting.
Across the EP, SOMYO proves especially deft at imbuing the tracks with a heartfelt gloss, making the music wonderfully alluring.
