David Harks - Open Arms

Tropical sounding steel-drum synths have always found a place in the heart of Breaking More Waves from way back in the mid 80’s with Howard Jones’ song of international friendship Like To Get To Know You Well through to The Knife’s Pass This On or the subtler Tropical Chancer by La Roux and the more melancholy sounds of Eloise Keating’s Be My Ghost (The Green Light), one of the most impressive songs we’ve heard by an unsigned act this year. So it’s no surprise to learn that Open Arms by Brighton’s David Harks has caught our attention in the same way that earlier track We did back in May, because it's fully loaded with them. We’re thinking sunsets, palm trees, cocktails loaded with ice, gorgeous girls and boys, surf and smiles.

The track features a vocal sample from Jayden McKenzie, a child preacher from the Cayman Islands, who we find rapping about logical thought vs intuition. “One is the religion of the head, the other is the religion of the heart,” he voices before singer David Sanderson coos a contradiction: “There is no religion.” Add in some dance-floor friendly beats and some soul diva backing vocals and what you have is a song that gives you faith that the church of Balearic pop is in safe hands.

David Harks - Open Arms