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Listen: Fossa – “Five Days” [Premiere]

12 March 2015, 11:17 | Written by Jennifer Jonson

If their debut single “Five Days” is any indication, London newcomers Fossa have something of Grizzly Bear’s knack for melody about them. The track, which is the first offering from their upcoming debut EP Sea of Skies, tells of falling in love over the course of five days. It’s lush and romantic, but a nonlinear construction keeps the song from ever delving into cliché.

Initially, an acoustic guitar plays winsome arpeggios accompanied by a simple and metronomic electro beat. Lead songwriter and vocalist Louis Shadwick lends his delicate upper register to the mix, lingering on breathy repetitions of the phrase “you’ve gotta be mine/gotta be mine/all mine”. Complete infatuation has never sounded so alluring.

Shadwick said of the song: "The song is basically a stream of consciousness. I'd just spent an intense five days with someone, but had no idea if anything would come of it. The day they left I couldn't think clearly at all. So maybe there was this need to get across a bigger picture of all the chaotic stuff going on inside my head and try to make sense of it, including some stuff that I probably didn't even realise I felt. But all of it drives towards that obsessive chorus line 'you gotta be mine' - that feeling was where the song came from and all the rest of the words and music revolve around it."

As the track progresses, Fossa weave in some ethereal ambient strings and an electric guitar, and in doing so continue to subvert discernable song structures. “Five Days” is gloriously directionless; it follows Shadwick’s lovestruck stream-of-consciousness through all its elegant ebbs and flows.

Sea of Skies is slated for release on 12 April, until then listen to “Five Days” below.

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