As Autumn descends around us, the latest track from the Berlin-based duo finds them attempting to out-run the encroaching darkness, while dreaming of a new dawn that will surely come tomorrow.

“Watching the world with restless eyes… keep up, don’t fall behind” sings Teresa Woischiski, lyrics defiant with notions of escapism, yet tinted with a world-wary melancholy. “Night Summer Waiting, what you keep within, you can do without”, she lulls, her crystalline vocal rising through layers of dreamy atmospheric synthesisers and elegiac piano motifs.

Written at a small Italian hilltop town under the scolding Summer sun, ‘Night Summer Waiting’ is a song ultimately born from a sense of isolation, claustrophobia and paranoia. Finding a country and its people still gripped in fear of the ongoing pandemic of 2020, The Ghost of Helags sought to escape from the intensity of their surroundings and turned to music for solace. 

Reflecting on the challenging writing conditions that helped to form ‘Night Summer Waiting’, Teresa says:

“The song  was written in the heat of this small mountain village on top of a hill in Italy. Completely isolated from society, only reachable via heavy serpentines, almost dangerous to drive in the rain, as the narrow streets get flooded. The only contact with people was the local bar, but everyone wore masks and human contact was almost impossible. There were no visitors, only a few locals who live there. Between Espressos, red wine and the almost unbearable heat of the South, this track emerged. As an outcry. In a feeling of vertigo, isolation, exhilaration and haziness from the heat. From the pain of being denied human touch and belonging.”

Driven by its crisp electronic percussion, ‘Night Summer Waiting’ recalls the majestic dream-pop masterworks of Still Corners or Chromatics and finds The Ghost Of Helags striking a perfect harmony in their sound. The track will feature on an upcoming new album being planned by the duo for release in 2021.

The Ghost of Helags are singer-songwriter and producer duo Teresa Woischiski and John Alexander Ericson. Hailing from Sweden and now located in Berlin, the pairing combine the dream pop sounds of their Scandinavian roots with the electronic nuances inspired by their newfound home and beyond. ‘Night Summer Waiting’ is the latest in a string of innovative and exploratory tracks by the duo and follows recent 2020 singles including the Chemical Brothers-inspired ‘Parallel’ and the seductive Lynchian-inspired synth-pop of recent single ‘Chemistry’. Other highlights of their continually expanding repertoire include the New Music Friday playlisted debut single ‘I Carry Your Heart’, ‘Autobahn Lullaby’ (a tribute to their Berlin home) and 2019’s hymnal ‘The Santa Rosa Song’.