Review
Genre and Mood
Jan Blomqvist made Something Says for the dance floor, and its label described it as a stripped-down excursion in rhythm. It belongs to deep house and electronic music as a long, patient track, and the feelings on this page, hypnotic and dreamy, are our reading of what the label heard: a slow lead towards a climax, carried by whispers rather than singing.
Song Summary
Something Says is the second of three tracks on Ink, Blomqvist’s first EP and his first 12-inch for Stil vor Talent, the Berlin label of Oliver Koletzki; MusicBrainz dates the digital release to May 2012, and the track runs about eight and a half minutes. The release credits name Blomqvist as composer and Blomqvist with Ryan Mathiesen as lyricists. The label’s notes set it against the EP’s title track, which has a classic song structure: for Something Says, Blomqvist strips his sound down and lets the track build patiently towards an epic climax of washed-out piano melodies, spurred on by his trademark whispers.
Musical Breakdown
The label’s notes give the shape of the track; no source names its timings, so this breakdown follows that shape without them.
Intro
The sound is stripped down, a dance-floor track in which rhythm leads.
Build-up
The track does not hurry. Listen for how it builds, and for the whispered voice that pushes it on.
Climax
At the end of the build, the label promised washed-out piano melodies and an epic climax.
Outro
No source describes how the track lets go; listen for whether the piano or the rhythm has the last word.
Concepts in Focus
Something Says is a lesson in the build-up as the whole form of a track. Blomqvist told Progressive Astronaut that a finished track is like a carefully written story, with an introduction, a plot and a climax, and that it is not rushed to an end just because a certain length is in fashion. Eight and a half minutes give a build room to work.
A live recording made the track known. Blomqvist called the video of Something Says his breakthrough: it was filmed spontaneously on a Berlin rooftop terrace on a rainy day in late summer 2011 and went viral. German Wikipedia places it on the roof of the Weekend club at Alexanderplatz; his channel carries a video titled Something Says (Live at WEEKEND Rooftop).
Artistic Context
Born Jan Freter in 1982, Blomqvist moved to Berlin at 19 and released his first single, Jan Blomqvist – Big Jet Plane, on Dantze in 2011. Ink followed on Stil vor Talent, and in 2012 he also sang on Oliver Koletzki’s The Devil In Me.
Impact and Reception
German Wikipedia says the video made Blomqvist known worldwide. He said it felt like the moment it all began, and years later the track still made him smile and he still played it. Give the build its eight minutes.
