I’m sure that many of us can recall picking up on acoustic guitar, or tapping the keys of a relative’s piano, or even playing the recorder at school. Any one of us has the potential to explore our creative side through music, but it takes a special kind of person to keep it up and to openly share their story through pieces of original songwriting. For Birmingham’s Dom Malin, he was fated to be a musician when he first tried his hand at the guitar age 12. From Green Day cover songs to his debut single ‘Hold on Me’ in 2020, Malin has been on a constant journey of improving his craft. Part of that development is exploring new themes and topics in his songwriting. Thats’ where his newest single ‘All I Know’ comes in.
The inspiration for this delicate and sensitive indie-folk rendering was a conversation with a friend about mental health, and that’s when the poetic line, “down by the river, she calls to a saint,” first came into being. Around this semi-mythical vision, Dom Malin was able to process the fear of potentially loosing someone close to him through battles with mental health. As such, the mellifluous acoustic recording walks the line between distanced memory and melancholic feelings.
Reflecting on his creation, Malin provides some technical insights into his single:
“The song is depicted from two different points of view, one who is watching, and one who is living it. To further enhance the soundscape I used a repetitive finger-picking pattern and a minimalist production to touch on the absence from reality.”
The organic elements that Malin works with throughout ‘All I Know’ are crafted in such a way that they’ve taken on a life of their own, like the ebbing tide, or blooming flower, or drifting cloud. It might sound subtle, but there’s great meaning to be found in such subtlety.
You can also find ‘All I Know’ in our Folk This Way playlist.
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