Ways of Seeing’s “Hasn’t Happened Yet” sounds like something from another era that had to have been produced in the current era. The style is reminiscent of later era Roxy Music with the hazy synth melodies and the kind of New Wave funk Duran Duran indulged toward the middle of the 80s. The song sounds like it was recorded in a cavernous space with the tones trailing off into infinity with James O’Donnell’s soulful vocals offering observations about the ambient anxieties that seem to be a feature of modern life. But rather than being penned in by these fears and emotional urgency out of the blue, O’Donnell tries to place the sources of these anxieties in their proper context and identifying them and thus giving them a form instead of an amorphous mass of overwhelming emotion. And setting it all to a dance beat that grounds those experiences. Thus though the song is about all of those feelings that can plague us suddenly and catch us unawares it is also about a strategy for managing anxiety even if we’re right to be concerned about the ultimate source of many of them. There has been so much cause to reasonably expect the worst in recent years but O’Donnell spells it out in the title of the song and to hold on to that idea when we might be drowning in anxiety. Listen to “Hasn’t Happened Yet” on Spotify and follow Ways of Seeing at the links below.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
You must be logged in to post a comment.