Daydreaming, lost and found
Daydreaming, nowhere bound
Falling deeper, falling down, it took me over
And I can’t get out
The life inside your head has certain advantages: better dialogue, revised endings, people who finally say what you needed to hear. Spend enough time there, though, and the ordinary world begins to feel like an interruption. Somewhere between rehearsing a happier life and forgetting to participate in your own, the imagination acquires a troubling degree of authority.
Minsk-based artist Tomorrows Letters traces that retreat on *Daydreaming*, a troubled synthpop lullaby set against a stark, black-and-white DIY video. The solo project of Kiryl Karotki, Tomorrows Letters gives the song an especially compelling frame: music that draws you close as its singer searches for a way out.
A deep snare and a looping bassline establish a measured, insistent rhythm, with a low metallic synth figure moving beneath high, resonant chimes. The bells lend the opening a fragile sweetness, soon complicated by Karotki’s voice. Drenched in reverb, his baritone carries regret and despondency with considerable poise, allowing dread to gather beneath the melody. Certain phrases soften toward a tender whisper without losing their weight.
There is a strong affinity with Dave Gahan here, particularly the sensual unease of Depeche Mode around Violator and Songs of Faith and Devotion. High harmonies brush the edges of the lead vocal, while a gentle acoustic jangle and deeper string tones add movement beneath it. Karotki gives these familiar pleasures a distinct arrangement: the bass keeps circling, the bells retain their nursery-room delicacy, and the voice seems increasingly conscious of how far it has drifted from safety.
“The track was originally titled ‘Maladaptive Daydreaming’, and that’s the core of it,” Karotki explains. “It’s about that state where your inner world becomes so consuming that it starts to replace reality. It’s about how escapism can turn into a trap.”
The lyrics trace that loss of control through thoughts taking flight in swirling formations, gathering a momentum their owner cannot arrest. A second voice has apparently dismissed the habit as a way to cope; the singer answers by describing the grip it has taken on him. The chorus keeps returning to the same admission, “And I can’t get out.” By the outro, the private entertainment has exhausted itself: the curtain falls, the screen goes silent, and an empty chair remains. Even then, the imagined story keeps calling.
Karotki built the recording around sampled bass guitar and bells, producing it on two vintage hardware samplers running from floppy disks. His intention was to keep the sound firmly within 1980s synthpop, with the equipment lending its own worn texture to the arrangement. He then mixed the track with Andrei Bobrovka, known for his work with Molchat Doma and Nürnberg, and completed the cover artwork himself.
The self-filmed video extends Karotki’s affection for classic Depeche Mode imagery into stark black-and-white rural scenes. He sits blindfolded on a chair in an open field; elsewhere, he performs with a guitar or peers through a screen of leaves. Flocks of birds fold and turn across the sky, giving the opening lyric’s murmuration a visual counterpart. The field offers room in every direction, yet the blindfold makes that freedom inaccessible. Images of the chair picked out by light against darkness bring the song’s final sense of vacancy into view.
Watch the video for Daydreaming below:
Working with a hardware-only approach, Tomorrows Letters draws on New Romantic pop and minimal synth to examine isolation, compulsive creation, and the less hospitable corners of the self. On Up Against the Wall, Karotki cast self-judgment as a trial with no prospect of acquittal. Daydreaming approaches that inward confinement through the comforts that gradually become dependencies, extending his interest in the mind’s capacity to make captivity feel familiar.
The single also includes a remix by Farforovyekoty, the side project of Nürnberg’s vocalist, which gives the song a more aggressive, post-punk treatment. Besides the original’s uneasy lullaby, it offers another route into Karotki’s fixation. The invitation is gentle enough; the difficulty comes when you try to leave.
Listen to Daydreaming via Apple Music or Spotify below:
The single is also available for purchase on Bandcamp.
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