The Music and Planet Project

Described as a maker of “melody-driven songs that ring melancholy and hopeful all at once”, Melbourne’s DUEL NATIVE is an artist with broad appeal. His music brings together sounds of folk, indie rock, and chamber pop and mixes them into an ear-pleasing experience. In his latest track, “Sense of You”, chief songwriter Stephen Choi puts this sound on full display through cheerful guitar riffs, a jaunty beat, and velvety vocals.

In addition to its general enjoyability, a few musical things stand out in particular about this latest single. The first is the track’s overall sense of whimsy, joy, and simplicity. It starts out with a relatively simple and happy guitar riff, evoking sounds of riff-driven bands like Belle Sebastian, Matt Costa, and Vampire Weekend. In light of the fact that a great deal of modern music tends to shun simplicity, I found this use of a simple riff as the hook to be quite refreshing (it reminded me of how Vampire Weekend took a bit of a turn back to no frills riff-driven music in their Father of Bride album on tracks like This Life). Simplicity and whimsy rule the day in other moments throughout the track, including in the guitar solo. A clear and very lightly distorted guitar dances around on the frets in an ear-pleasing way without anything too flashy or heavy on effects. Finally, at the end of the track, the artist utilizes the time-tested formula of going up an octave for the last chorus, following his ears and emotions to present a variety of twists on the original melody. The outro evokes a sense of just pure joy playing around on the melody with no extra frills attached. 

In addition to the track’s sense of joy in simplicity, another aspect of the track worth highlighting is the fact that it was recorded live. As a listener, you can really feel the musicians feeding off of each other’s energy as they move through the various parts. This intangible sense of energy is something you simply cannot capture in traditional recording settings. It was a gutsy move to release the song live, but it paid off by adding this extra layer of both spontaneity and unity. 

A third element of the track worthy of admiration is its lyrics. In writing about “the struggle to stop that ex from turning up in everyday objects”, DUEL NATIVE plays on a subject familiar to a broad audience here. “Every time you come around here it turns me upside down” captures the essence of that familiar feeling well in the refrain. Who among us hasn’t struggled with dusting off the memory of someone previously in our lives, whether romantically or otherwise? In writing on this universal experience, the artist hits home on a subject relevant to many, if not all, of us. 

In sum, “Sense of You” by DUEL NATIVE does many things well, not the least of which include its sense of simplicity and whimsy, its live energy, and its lyrical astuteness. If you haven’t checked out DUEL NATIVE yet, their entire catalog of singles and EPs are equally worthy of exploring. Stream the new song here and follow DUEL NATIVE for more earworms.