In the new single Gilded Shadow, Los Angeles artist Olive Kimoto moves like moonlight through a half-forgotten dream; her voice the slow tide, her arrangements the undertow. Produced by Chrome Sparks and mastered by Alex Wharton, the single drapes itself in gauze: soft guitar haze, spectral synth washes, breakbeats that seem to breathe. Each element glances off the other, like glowing lanterns languidly gliding across gentle dark waters.
The song is a small world, yet it opens onto something oceanic. Not in breadth, but in the kind of depth that feels like falling upward. Listening is like walking along an empty pier in late summer, funnel cake in hand, the air warm with endings. Somewhere behind you, the world is fraying, but here there’s a glow that keeps you still and reasonably content for one more moment. It begins with a breath that could be the start of a confession. Then comes the drift: tones curving like smoke, rhythms barely touching down before they rise again.
Her words feel overheard in a hallway at midnight, where a door’s left ajar and a lamp burns low. She sings of hunger, of intimacy bartered on the cusp of breaking. The phrasing recalls dreams that dissolve before morning, yet leave their heat behind. There’s something oneiric here, but also deliberate—bright, pop-forward, an ’80s/’90s era 4AD shimmer threaded with Creation Records gauze. Kimoto shapes absence into architecture. A note will swell, then thin into nothing, as if retreating before it’s claimed. Between the spaces, your own memory takes root—Cocteau Twins by way of Strawberry Switchblade, with Chromatics drifting in from the corner of the room through an old wooden speaker.
Kimoto’s voice carries that moment the way glass holds light: delicate, translucent, and edged with quiet fire.
Listen to “Gilded Shadow” below:
Olive Kimoto will hold a Gilded Shadow Single Release Party on August 10, 2025 at Tropical Berlin with support from Locust, Bianca Lexis, and Smilegoth. She will also go live on Oct 14 with James K at 2200 Arts + Archives Los Angeles.
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