Earlier this year, we reviewed Jared Saltiel’s phenomenal full-length, The Light Within. Last week, his brother Jason Saltiel released an equally brilliant EP, Wait Until The Night. Where Jared’s LP used a lens of ornate chamber-pop to explore fantastical lyrical adventures and americana blues, the other Saltiel focuses that same lens of ’60s lounge-pop and bossa nova. Part Bacharach, part Jens Lekman, Saltiel’s melodies soar in an elegant but fragile falsetto, his chords cleverly move in unusual ways, the arrangements (written by both Saltiel brothers) swell with strings, woodwinds, and various percussion instruments. 

Opening track “Je Ne Veux Que Toi” (“I Only Want You,” I think…), is, in fact, not a cover of French singer Yoni’s song of the same name. Instead, the original song sounds more like The Cardigans, with its simple melody, big chorus, and easy tempo. On “Of Love and Alcohol,” the penultimate ballad, Saltiel uses chords and textures that seem to be pulled from the outro of Genesis’ “Dancing with the Moonlit Knight” to lament a lost love. He ends the song in a beautiful image, singing, “So I’ll pour her body in wine, blood red/ and drink of love and alcohol/until she is here again” And on “If She Loved Me,” Saltiel channels classic Brazilian pop and offers his most elegant melody. When he sings, “But I know if she loved me, then…,” the melody leaps up and then descends down a major seventh arpeggio that is at once unexpected and splendidly beautiful. The real stand out song for me, though, is the title track. “Wait Until The Night” feels like a lost song from an old movie musical hypothetically set in Paris. The swells of tightly orchestrated strings, the relaxed rhythm, and the classically constructed melody are undeniably moving. After the second chorus, an instrumental section takes over, and you can practically see Fred Astaire swinging Ginger Rogers around a back-lot set made to look like a French street at night.

This is not to say, however, that the EP lacks a sense of cohesion or stylistic unity. Each song has the same core spirit and elagent songwriting. And thematically, the songs concern themselves with faded love and idealized romance, to match the nostalgic, retro character of the music. On the Sondre Lerche-esque closing track, “Leaving in the Morning,” Saltiel sings, “Speak, my love/since you always speak of love, speak of it now,” and that sentiment seems to sum up the whole set.

Wait Until The Night is available on Saltiel’s bandcamp, where you can also buy his debut album from last year, Jason Saltiel Sings His Hits, for name-your-own-price

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