Paco Sala – “Johnny Silverhands”

The name Digitalis is no stranger to the Decoder community, as the Foxy Digitalis blog is where I and a handful of other Decoder writers cut our teeth before we settled into our new home here at Decoder. With connections to Brad and Eden I have been given the chance to dive deep into the Digitalis catalog over the past few years, and I remember being struck by the first Paco Sala album, Ro-Me-Ro, with its lugubrious take on laptop pop and RnB carving out a sizable chunk of my listening time when it came out in 2012. As the second single from their upcoming sophomore LP, “Johnny Silverhands” is a slow-moving, melancholic tune. At first it sounds almost too minimal, but the open spaces between beats and synth notes make every moment of these three and a half minutes count, and further listens reveal a slithery beat lurking beneath the gorgeously downhearted vocals. It’s a dramatic second offering from Put Your Hands On Me, and will surely make you eager to hear what else the UK duo has in store on the LP. Stream the track below and be sure to check out the rest of the record when it drops in April through Digitalis.