Give me a waltz and I’m already paying attention. I have always had a soft spot for ternary time signatures, so “Ballerina Song” caught me before I had much chance to resist it. There is an immediate ease in the three-beat movement, but what really kept me there was the feeling that the song isn’t trying to announce what it is. It simply moves, floats and lets the listener decide where to place it.
Leannie‘s voice is a lovely fit for that freedom. Her delivery has a sweetness that never becomes sugary, and there is a relaxed confidence in the way she moves through the melody. I particularly like the sense of space around her. The production doesn’t build a cage for the vocal; it gives it somewhere to wander. That makes the song feel almost weightless, as if the melody has detached itself from the usual rules of pop and is happily floating around looking for somewhere to land.
The interesting part is how naturally Count The Clock brings together two very different instincts. The waltz belongs to an older musical language, one that has been used for centuries to make bodies move in three rather than four, whilst the electronic textures place the song somewhere much closer to our own time. Between those points sits a dreamy pop sensibility that doesn’t need a neat genre label. For me, that lack of definition is one of its strengths. The song feels like an idea travelling from one head to another, changing shape slightly each time.
About Count The Clock:
Count The Clock is the art-pop project of LA-based songwriter and composer Michael Coe, whose influences stretch from shoegaze and baroque pop to Disney musicals. That mixture makes a lot of sense here. “Ballerina Song” has the sweetness of classic songwriting, the theatrical instinct of older pop and enough electronic atmosphere to keep its feet away from anything too familiar. I can easily imagine putting this on at the beginning of a summer morning, before the day has decided what it wants from me. A lovely little piece of musical freedom.
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