A sixteen-year-old composer and producer from Lincolnshire, England, William Jacobs has spent early years independently creating a wide array of instrumental, electronic music. A young talent with a penchant for digital soundscapes, his first album, ‘The Calm’, was released in 2017, bringing with it a wave of electronic anthems influenced by orchestral video game soundtracks. Constantly looking to push his sound and reinvigorate his compositional work, Jacobs’ current work has broken ground into more experimental territories, and his latest single ‘Vapour Trail’ has arrived with a noticeably different sound.
Released today (March 15th), the new single is the first taste of his upcoming EP, ‘Ozone’, which promises to drop in April this year. Described as the ‘poppiest’ track from the new EP, ‘Vapour Trail’ looks to capture the imagination through a cascade of mind-bending beats and infectious melodies, forming its own vibrant world in which listeners can get lost in.
Pushing forward with a maelstrom of IDM, ambient, and trip-hop textures, ‘Vapour Trail’ stitches together a series of intricate tones and digitals shades to cover a lot of ground in it’s four-minute run time. Bringing together scales that ascend and fall, a roaming, back-beat, and a steady baseline, everything about ‘Vapour Trail’ is designed to quieten the mind and calm the storms. It’s a song of delicate touches and detailed composition, one that nudges at the video game soundtracks that first inspired Jacobs, while also proudly showing his growth.
It’s not a track that immediately jumps out at you, but then it was never written to be. Like much of his earlier work, ‘Vapour Trail’ glides into existence and announces itself slowly, developing and unfolding before you, never quite settling, and glistening with a transient bliss. It’s an impressive first taste of what is come, and a definite reason to keep your eyes on William Jacobs.
Score: 8/10
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