About two minutes into his new single “The Ballad of Sanaleigh,” Tash Hagz generates a vocal harmony that could be the most brooding of any he’s recorded in his career thus far, but this melodic climax is hardly the only high point in this track. From beginning to end, the layers of majestic audio that combine to form the fabric of this song are nothing short of spellbinding, and incredible producing is only part of the reason why. In reality, I have a feeling that Tash Hagz would be just as profound in his delivery regardless of the venue – from studio to stage, this is a player who knows how to make something larger than life minus the filler we commonly hear in progressive pop/rock.
SOUNDCLOUD: https://soundcloud.com/tashhagz
The volume on the instrumentation in this single allows for the string play to sound particularly imposing, but I wouldn’t say that the fretwork is so potent as to drown out the textural presence of the other parts in this mix at all. There’s a nice, evenhandedness to the structure of the arrangement that gives every instrument in this track a lot of room to breathe, and better yet, there’s rarely an instance in which Tash Hagz’s vocal isn’t riding atop the groove colorizing the adjacent harmony with as much emotion as his pipes can muster. He’s not biting off more than he can chew here, but he’s absolutely raising the bar for himself and his scene as it presently stands in 2021.
With regards to the tight construction of the verses and their beats, I think “The Ballad of Sanaleigh” is made a lot more fluid through the confidence that Tash Hagz is presenting it with. He’s got such a warm swagger to his voice that it’s difficult to picture his not being completely relaxed in his performance here; everything is coming together naturally, leaving the need for plasticity and sonic synthetics of any kind at the door. There’s something to be said about players who have the kind of intimate relationship with their medium that this man does, and when taking into account the relatively short time this project has been getting spotlighted by the indie press, he deserves all the more acclaim for how much he’s influencing the narrative right now.
I haven’t any doubts as to whether or not we’re going to be hearing more quality music from this source in the next couple of years, and provided Tash Hagz sticks with the present artistic trajectory he’s on – which led to the creation of “The Ballad of Sanaleigh” – I believe he’s going to find as much interest in his material on the mainstream side of the dial as he does the underground at the moment. The buzz surrounding his witty use of psychedelia and layered alternative folk concepts is no joke, and after taking a close look at this all-new single just recently, I would have to agree with those who are calling him one of the more underrated players in his scene today.
Chadwick Easton