Through their most recent single “Timeless,” Tangerine steps into the luminous glow of reflection and self-discovery, ushering listeners to sit with the strange, beautiful ache that is aging. The LA duo, Marika Justad and Toby Kuhn, have long been purveyors of indie-pop fare, but this time around, they exchange sun-soaked memories for something more emotionally charged. “Timeless” envelops you like a gentle breeze during the golden hour, mournful, warm, and unforgettable. Marika’s vocals sit effortlessly on the dreamy production. Her voice is just dancing alongside, tired but up for it.
Justad and Kuhn tap into those raw emotions that accompany aging, including fear and quiet acceptance. But there’s no melodrama here. The lyrics are direct and poetic, yet not opaque, and speak to everyone’s experience. It is about honoring what came before and what’s still to come. Kuhn’s production is a lush, inventive one, weighty layers of glistening textures subtly threaded through every line. The instrumentation is reflective of the subject, and unpredictable in the most gorgeous sense of the word. It gently draws you in and provides room for you to contemplate your journey across time.
The thing that makes “Timeless” exceptional, though, is less the message it conveys than the way Tangerine delivers it with gentle assurance, staggering openness, and a musical language that is at once intimate and vast. Tangerine is teaching us how to listen to it, to live with it, perhaps even to love it. And in the process, they’ve made something that actually is, dare we say, timeless.