New Music: RINNGS – Tombstoning

RINNGS (Karl Zine and Nai Jannson) dropped their pop-noir single Tombstoning recently released via the wonderfully named Wow and Flutter Records. The London duo has a subtly vibrant style, as you can hear below.

Italo synths meet mellow tropical beats and achingly expressive RNB vocals in a song designed to tug at the heartstrings. At the centre of the track is a K-Pop sense of rhythm and flow, with the hooks and loops softened the gauze-like production. That serves to reinforce the emotional impact not just of the vocals and lyrics, but also the melancholic, technicolour arrangement. It’s a song about love, but also the fears attached to love, a complex concept expressed with ease and clarity.

The band explained the creative process that led to the song: “Tombstoning is the act of jumping off sea walls, cliffs or bridges into water. It’s hugely dangerous because you often don’t know how deep the water is. It’s also a massive adrenaline rush and makes the people doing it feel incredibly ‘alive.’ Because of the obvious parallels, it seemed like a good way of describing how it can feel to fall in love with someone or attempt to start a new relationship.

There’s huge risk involved in doing this; you know that you could be hurt very badly. The acceptance of that risk is something that is necessary in order to feel truly alive and to truly connect but, it’s also pretty terrifying. Everyone has different ways of dealing with it. That’s what makes love so interesting to write about. There are as many different experiences of it as there are couples.”

Tombstoning is out now via Wow and Flutter, you can catch up with RINNGS on their Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter feeds to discover more ways to listen to the tune.