In the opening rays of Sharo’s latest single, California Sun, you’ll be swept into waves of Cali synth-pop, where temperate oceanic soul and retrowave shimmer are signed, sealed, and delivered straight from the shore. You can almost smell the lemon haze on the retro synths as the melody breezes in, floating between peaks of effervescent euphoria and undercurrents of melancholy left out to dry beneath the blistering aural rays. Sharo manages to pull the resonance straight from the salt air, inviting listeners to drift with the flotsam in his uniquely bittersweet sound.
If you’ve been on the hunt for the golden middle ground between moody synth-pop and euphorically kinetic earworms, this is your port of call. The scintillating synthetics shimmer around Sharo’s intimately sweet vocal style, which traces a melancholic line reminiscent of Elliott Smith, without ever settling for pastiche.
The Maryland-based producer and vocalist, who has been navigating the boundaries between EDM, chillwave, lo-fi hip hop, and pop since 2016, continues to expand his aural palette on this single. California Sun is a bright, genre-surfing testament to his evolution and proof that even in the deepest synthetic grooves, vulnerability can bask unashamed in the light.
California Sun is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.
Review by Amelia Vandergast