Gentle Temper Releases Cold Shoulder, Second Single Off of Debut Album

The self-described ocean-folk music of songwriting duo Gentle Temper is more than a fleeting undertow of harmony; it’s a dialogue between partners, brimming with subtleties and finesse. Ryan Meier and Marion Earley are two distinct voices in poetic discourse, wholly individual and unique. We are all merely witnesses to their conversation.

On “Cold Shoulder”, Meier and Earley trade off describing a distant and troubled love, both beckoning comfort from within its absence with a simple plea: “Cold Shoulder, roll over here.” Meier’s sandy drawl, balanced by the tender strum of an acoustic guitar, feels as comforting as it does hollow, rich in timbre while teeming with a forlorn awareness. There’s an inescapable emptiness when he laments, “There’s a mold in the shade in the shape of you/ Sunlight might just sting today.” Earley, tranquil and stoic, responds, “You coil tightly around yourself, and a shell of you is all they’ll see.” As the pair meet for the song’s cyclical refrain, the foaming ambience expands into a salty gust. In a crescendo of vigor, they sing together, “As we fade from black and white/ We explode into life”, as the music washes over like a brothy high tide under a coastal grey sky.

“OWRL”, an acronym for “Our Warm Red Light”, is a song written and performed solely by Meier. The nostalgia Meier incites is steeped in youthful romance, for which the color red bears it’s most powerful association in life- there is nothing redder than youthful passion. The color red manifests itself within Meier’s poetic musings; it can be found as the glow of a power button on a film projector (“Sit with me now/ In our two seat theatre/ The city gone silent/ Like the previews on time”), or the fluorescent bath of a traffic light while stopped cold in a city square (“We’ll always have it to ourselves/ A different city every night”). The underlying implication of “OWRL”, buried beneath a buoyant and spirited guitar part, is that the red light is a representation of stasis, an emblem of peace within a relationship. It’s the light that swathes its subjects when summoned by a mutual and unconditional understanding; one could say that “OWRL” is a folksy charm that summons the divine power of unity.   

-Charley Ruddell