By Grant Kelly, Contributor

[Dismiss Yourself; 2024]

Rating: 8/10

“Pulled Me Up” is the newest single from eclectic indie and electronic musician iANO, the second released in preparation for his upcoming album Be Again under internet label Dismiss Yourself. Never one to be pigeonholed into a single genre, iANO’s inclination towards atmospheric electronic textures remains, but is woven into one of his most ambitious and enchanting songs to date. 

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The song opens with a sea of lulling piano chords and distant droning strings, which prime the listener for the vivid explosion of sound that occurs a little over a minute later. iANO’s delicate vocals are bolstered by an array of harmonious classical melodies and crisp, mechanical percussion that guides most of the track onwards. There’s a persistent humming quality to the instrumental that makes the song uniquely dreamlike, even when new sounds are added or stripped away. 

iANO also demonstrates a strong sense of dynamics in this composition. Each portion of the song lasts long enough to submerge the listener in its atmosphere, but varies enough over its seven minute runtime to keep it fresh and unpredictable. One of my favorite things that artists do with music is blur the line between organic and synthetic textures, and between the acoustic instrumentation, the passionate, melancholic vocal performance and the constant whir of iANO’s electronic experiments, the song achieves this in stride. 

The only minor critique I have of the song is with the moment the vocals are first introduced. The song initially presents itself as sort of a freeform, instrumental ambient piece, and having the vocals be introduced within a bar of the instrumental climax just feels a little jarring. I think just a few echoing vocal samples during the intro could have made the song even more gratifying, but as it stands, it’s still a lovely display of sound. 

Every minute detail of “Pulled Me Up” feels engineered to be as hypnotic as possible, and it pays off. The tight harmonies and otherworldly arrangement produce a sonic painting just beckoning you to get lost in it, and I’m eager to see where the rest of the album leads. 

Listen here: