Relocating from Brescia in Italy to Manchester, Julia Bardo has absorbed musical influences and developed her cross-genre styling to great effect. About to release ‘Phase’ her debut EP, ‘Please Don’t Tell me’ is the second taster track, following on from ‘I Wanna Feel Love’ which was a hybrid of 60’s multi-layer torch song and moody dream-pop, complete with spoken word section and retro instrumentation.
This new song has a more disconnected feeling in the music and lyrics – starting with a distant vocal floating across an alt-country soundscape. This soon bridges into a catchier chorus ‘….. please don’t tell me who I am…please don’t tell me who you are…’ as a guitar figure sounds subtly jarring and dissonant then goes into a short instrumental link.
And all of this in the first half of the song. There is plenty of musical activity in less than four minutes; add in the video too with the red and blue coloured versions of Julia’s conscience, the possibly deserted performance venue and the old portable TV and this is a rich, rewarding and thought-provoking single.