We are in the middle of a bit of a sustained heat wave in the UK, which is a little rare for August. Typically, as soon as the schools break up for summer at the end of July, the weather turns wetter. Instead, I find myself regularly trying to keep my newly laid turf alive as the sun beats down.
As a result, I’ve found myself leaning even more heavily into the kind of warm synth sounds, falsetto vocals and skittering percussion that I love so much, and that always feels even more perfect in the sun. It’s into this headspace that St. Anthony Mann’s Make Believe arrives.
With the kind of vocal that sounds like fruit that has just reached peak ripeness whilst still on the vine, Make Believe combines an emotive performance with thick and glossy synth melodies and choral harmonies. The effect feels simple and restrained, yet only happens as a result of a careful combination of layers. This beguiling sense of complexity and simplicity perhaps stems from the song’s creation, with the song starting as a simpler acoustic song before mutating into something more energising:
‘This song started out as a soft acoustic piece, but somewhere the arrangement itself went down a different path and came up with all this energy behind it, which was exciting. At that point, it all came together quite naturally. Later on my good friend JT Bates (Bonny Light Horseman, Big Red Machine, Taylor Swift) did some arranging of the drums and percussion sounds after I had recorded the initial guitar-stutter track.’
Hailing from St. Paul, Minnesota, Mann starting making music in high school, with finger-style guitar and experimental alternate tunings. Having spent time in the Midwestern plains, he returned to Minnesota and started recording music under the moniker St. Anthony Mann.
On Make Believe, Mann is inspired by the notion of transition and change as we head down paths unknown, as explained below:
‘This song, for me, is about that point of transition as you step onto a new path or a new journey. (…) A portal or a doorway has always symbolized a new beginning, and folks often might feel some trepidation before the path, as what lies ahead is the unknown. This song meditates on both sides of that decision; those who spend all their time in a sort of liminal space and those that decide to walk the path into the unknown.’