Listen: In This Together by The Landing

With tight percussion, colourful synths and slick vocal harmonies, Washing D.C. based musician The Landing creates a distinctly European feeling sound on new single In This Together.

The musical project of classically trained musician and amateur astronomer Jon Bell, In This Together builds on the meditative nature of track This Way, released back in May. Bell sees The Landing as a project “seeking to turn the struggle of finding one’s place in the Universe into an anthem for the optimistic”.

A Casio-calculator-watch dance aesthetic evokes Hot Chip, but the verse has the refined, clean lines of early Phoenix and Erlend Øye’s The Whitest Boy Alive. The chorus is a comparative explosion of sound – arpeggiated melodies providing a sense of forward momentum, lifting Bell’s vocal delivery.

In the closing minute of In This Together, Bell briefly strips his song back to a minimal piano accompaniment to his vocal, before re-applying each layer, and finally dropping an angular, post-punk style guitar solo. The result is infectious, urgent and over quickly. I find myself wanting more.

In This Together is the third single lifted from The Landing’s forthcoming debut LP, Beautiful Human Beautifully Human. The song is partly inspired by the Carl Sagan quote, “For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love”, leveraging Bell’s love of space and astronomy as he reaches for into the universe for meaning. Check it out below:

Listen: This Way — The Landing

Layered neo soul, funk, and psychedelia come together in a tight embrace on the contemplative, reflective stroll that is The Landing’s This Way.

In creating This Way, The Landing was inspired by the energy on Jungle’s track Bonnie Hill. The resulting piece finds its way to its own distinct vibe and atmosphere. There is a lovely richness to The Landing’s sound here, and it invites you to luxuriate in its own moment. The song ends up being a meditative tribute to presence and mindfulness, as the artist describes:

“The lyrics of This Way speak of the inevitability of the present moment, that the Universe always unfolded just so, in just this way, to arrive here, at now. Wow!”

A classically training musician and amateur astronomer, The Landing looks to bring together synth arrangements that would scale to a symphony orchestra, all whilst leveraging a cosmic perspective. As you hear here, the result is lively and human, leveraging a sense of scale to landing something reassuringly earthy and compassionate.

With over 5-million streams online, The Landing has twice been featured by Apple Music as a Top New Artist, and featured on Spotify’s own curated playlists.