“So Amazing” by Mariea Antoinette

With the mild plucking of a colorful harp and the slow plodding of some distant percussion to serve as the canvas, the smooth sounds one Mariea Antoinette ushers forth in her new single “So Amazing” immediately clues us in to just how powerful an instrumental affair we’re about to partake in. Nothing is overbearing about the music in this introduction per se, but to suggest that the feeling is anything but divine as we get into the guts of the harmony here would be an outright lie. We’re in the midst of an enigmatic show of strength from Antoinette, and in the next few minutes, she’s going to show us just how much power she can exert regardless of the presence of lyrics.  

The harp element is the undisputed star of the show here, but it doesn’t take away from the essence of the related instrumental charisma at all – it adds to the substance of the melodicism in “So Amazing” exponentially. As soon as the distant backing vocal’s melody makes contact with the harp for the first time in the mix, they become inseparable components of the same harmony, and together their potency will be what gives the hook in this song its added zeal. This isn’t to say that the structure of the arrangement is missing the pizazz that a lot of artists would have given it so much as it’s to acknowledge what makes this single and its music video so hard to put down once picked up.  

In most of the contemporary instrumental music that I listen to, the production becomes as much an instrument as a string part or a drumbeat would, but that’s not the case with “So Amazing” for even a fleeting moment. With the melodies being as certifiably organic as they are from one beat to the next, there isn’t any room in the final product for the music to lean on the soundboard with regards to putting fireworks in the right spots. Our leading lady is depending on the natural depth of her harp’s tonality to make a big impression on the listeners with this release, and even in the imagistic music video for the song, there are no moments in which the visuals beat out the background melody for our attention.  

I had never heard of Mariea Antoinette before a colleague in the music industry got me into her new single, but if this is any sort of indication as to what I should be expecting out of her work from here on out, she’s going to become a staple of my watch-list in 2023. There are a lot of reasons to believe that easy-listening music isn’t dead outside of its storied underground, and if you have faith in this genre making any sort of a credible comeback in the next ten years, artists like the amazing Mariea Antoinette are who you need to be supporting. Hers is a noble cause, and it has produced some amazing new moments in this latest single.  

Mindy McCall