In today’s age, technology has flooded our lives with content. Caught in the mire are today’s musicians who champion an art form that’s more widely distributed than any other throughout human history. And we, more often than not, overlook the music created by unfamiliar faces because it’s challenging. We’d rather have an easy listen, a known quantity to skim through while we think about something else.
Hearing is easy, but listening is difficult. Welcome to “Why We Like It”, where we rebuke the trends in favor of thoughtful analysis and underknown sounds.
“Hole” — Babé Sila
Listen On:
How We Found It
Babé Sila, a Hungarian singer/songwriter, living in London, decided to bless our SubmitHub inbox with something so deliciously soulful, I was full after the first listen. She captivated every part of my consciousness with the warm embrace of her sound.
Growing up in a multicultural environment, Sila says that through her songwriting she found a voice to speak on these experiences. Embracing honesty, fragility, and duality of the human experience, Sila wants to breathe truth into her songs.
Why We Like It
The Parable of the Hole — it’s a topic among writers about embracing the meaning of emptiness and how one either gets out of it or finds the meaning of the darkness inside you. When I was an English major in university, we were told to play with the parable as we all have our own view of the hole and where we sink into it. On her single, “Hole,” Babé Sila navigates her way through this space of emptiness. She sings the opening line “there’s a hole you’ve been falling through. You know you feel it” and quickly sets the tone of descending through her record.
I’ve been through that. I hate the spinning. / Going round n round. Makes me lose my shit. / Stop. / So I just sing a little. Dance a little. Do my thing. / Breathe a little. Drink a little. Forget everything….. / It lets me down a little bit. Cry a little bit. / I can’t take it– Babé Sila for “Hole”(2020)
Sila almost sees the hole as comforting. The familiarity of emptiness allows her to keep everything true to her perspective. It’s the dark place where you can let out all the negative emotions you’ve been piling up. The hole appeared because you yourself were sinking further with each transgression. But now that she’s here, she knows how to get out and embrace everything that’s been plaguing her.
The song’s general purpose is to send out good vibes and good, uplifted energy.
If it even encourages some to take care, protect and nurture their mental health better it makes me super happy because I find it super important and unfortunately relevant in these troubled times.” – Babé Sila for CentralSauce (2020)
Musically, every echoing note lends itself to this contemplative and reflective record. The opening lines are haunting as they’re just her voice. Once the music kicks in, the production rings like pretty, eerie thoughts that are bouncing from the verses and off of the inside of my own head. Once the chorus sounds off, all these thoughts are meeting together to create this gorgeous melody that keeps you company in celebration, purging yourself from those negative thoughts that threaten to drag you down. Once pure, I find myself leaving the hole to finally see the light I was trying to find.
From Babé Sila
I wrote “Hole” in the middle of an anxiety attack. My main symptom is usually a few hours of heavy vertigo so that’s where the ‘falling into a Hole’ picture comes from – pretty much like in Alice in Wonderland when she falls through Wonderland when she falls through the rabbit-hole. Writing this song was my way of dealing with it at that moment, I wanted to distract myself by creating something of the opposite feelings – joyful, playful and warm and beautiful.” – Babé Sila for CentralSauce
More From Babé Sila
If you want to follow Babé’s journey, you can follow her on Instagram. You can listen to the song “Flamingos” that’s the companion single to “Hole. There’s also the single, “Marie,” and her latest full body of work in the 2017 album, August.
More to Discover
Subscribe to the CentralSauce mailing list so you never miss out on the freshest sauce. Check out this continuously updated playlist of songs Tyler has added to our Discovery section! Each track or artist has been featured in our “Why We Like It” section, so be sure to check out the page here on the site.
