It was only last week that we drew your attention to Rare Logic’s track ‘No Brakes’, featuring none other than singer-songwriter Ben Zaidi. Safe to to say that the Brooklyn-via-Seattle artist has kept to his promise that new songs would soon be seeing the light of day, although perhaps we didn’t expect that to come to fruition quite so soon. However, it’s fantastic to hear the fresh direction of this emerging talent, one which he describes as 'future soul'. In contrast to the Rare Logic collaboration, ‘Lake Morey.’ is closer to the songwriter side of music with Zaidi’s introspective lyrics and that immortal combination of voice and piano. Listening to the recording, you can imagine the song’s origin - Zaidi sat at a piano, allowing his emotions to pour forth. On this finished version, it’s gospel keys and ambient beats that background Zaidi’s still raw vocals. With defeated tone, he uses the imagery of Lake Morey through changing seasons to convey the end of a relationship and his own heartache. The opening line, “All summer, / we were falling, / lake water, / now it’s frozen,” is particularly poignant. His reflection on the present so easily becoming the past is reflected in the beats, which sound like a ticking seconds hand on a clock throughout the mid-section, although as the song reaches its conclusion, the concept of time seems to disappear and Zaidi’s isolation washes over piano chords, and then silence - the last thing to accompany his affecting vocal. - Hannah Thacker