Jonah Baker and Addison Agen create a bleak record, largely about the complexities of a struggling relationship. Their tightly wound voices convinces you to join in as they calibrate heartfelt disappointment to multiple settings: damning and plaintive to deliciously scorning. The duo prefer a harmonic delivery that can package punchlines and hard truths with a cozy, cosmic wink. Their new single “If You Don’t” aims to point out that person in a relationship who can sound coolly independent and wounded at once.
Jonah Baker, an Indiana-native singer/songwriter, takes on the lower register as Addison Agen invites a more natural light into the mix. The acoustic guitar plays throughout alongside the occasional piano arrangements and pillow-soft drums, but both keep their voices front and center, floating effortlessly between Pop, Indie, Rock and Alternative. The effects of this emotional slowdown can be heard on the song. Regrets and disappointments linger in the music the way they do in real-life relationships, casting long shadows.
This music incorporates that kind of atmosphere around the artists. Peaceful, with ample room to breathe, the kind that could change with each performance, on any night, in different weather. The arrangements fill the blanks between their words. Both Jonah Baker and Addison Agen focus their songwriting on self-discovery and how the passing of time shifts the understanding of a relationship. The lyrics put any relationship under the microscope, letting us in on a series of climactic exchanges between two people in love, and at the end of their ropes.
Each verse is more hopeless than the last, and both lovers in this relationship sound exhausted and hardened to their own bad habits, and they realize it is time to get moving on. Both Jonah Baker and Addison Agen sing softly, with an instinct to rhyme or tie things up to make memorable lines. Nonetheless, “If You Don’t” soaks much deeper into your heart when you listen to it in silence, when you are alone in a room. It’s quite moving and when you finally get to the end, you can’t help but shed a tear, as you struggle to contain the emotions that brim to the surface. It’s another sad love song that packs a heavy emotional punch.
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