Singaporean singer-songwriter Jean Tan delivers a delicious new single – ‘Oak Cherry Wine’.
Jean Tanโs latest single ‘Oak Cherry Wine’ sees her continuing strong in a signature, bluesy vein style and comes ahead of her anticipated 5-song EP to be released in fall 2020 – produced and arranged by Singaporean R&B artist and multi-instrumentalist Dru Chen.
So is this just another love song? Definitely not.ย
Though familiar themes of courtship and romance feature like they do in the previous singles, this is perhaps Jeanโs most personal release to date. This is an ode to love, but a deeper kind โ one that grows better with age, holds steady in both the valley and mountain moments.ย
It is a lettre d’amour to the lover who decides to stay for better and worse, richer and poorer, in sickness and in health.
This is after all a song born out of Jeanโs own story โ her personal health struggles with kidney disease and the man who married her despite the uncertainty of a lifetime together. Perhaps itโs why it feels so powerful despite the simple instrumentation of keys and a couple of guitars.
The listener is taken on a journey as the melodies of the two guitars dance around each other like two binary stars. Seventh chords. A walking, no, skipping bass line. An unexpected twinkling of the electric piano right at the end to bring it all home.
The song offers endless contrasts and complexity in so few elements that itโs hard not to be intrigued. It is sentimental, but fierce. Sweet but not saccharine. A glass of oak cherry wine, tilted to the lips โ bittersweet, familiar, true.
Indeedโฆ Listening to it and the serenade reminds us of the mood of Nat King Coleโs L.O.V.E – perhaps more dusky and twilight. There is also a sort of intrepidness to the song. The colours are bold, while the viscosity is fluid yet delicately melding – almost like a glass of Oak Cherry wine against the backdrop of a fireplace.
Listen to the song below: