Started in 2023 as the solo elegant and melodic Goth-Darkwave endeavor by Raleigh, North Carolina-based singer, songwriter and guitarist Hunter Blondin, Saiph has expanded this year to a full five-piece line-up. Comprised of dual singers, two guitars, bass, synth and a drum machine, the group seems to have found its own reliable sonic dimension, inspired by bands like Lycia, Twin Tribes, London After Midnight and Joy Division.
photo by @meowlie
Dropped for Halloween, Saiph‘s latest single, “Distance,” cloaked in an eerie, dreamlike, gloomy aura, deals, lyric-wise, with the endless death cycle of a poisonous romance.
‘A tale of love, tragedy and the distance that follows’
Tight, boomy programmed beats pound incessantly underneath an intricate, solemn tapestry of echo-drenched, crystal-cut guitars that quiver with melancholic resonance, building a reverberating, suspended haze, pierced through by poignant, brass-like blowing stabs, around drab, forlorn male vocals, layered with airy, pain-filled female cries. They join together during a ghostly piano-laced interlude, before a wicked whisper, coated with a delicate, plaintive keyboard melody, separates them again.
photo by @meowlie
