Gliding in on a laid-back shuffle, warm bass, and some impressively fluid electric guitar, Sam Seccombe’s Waiting on Your Love is a seriously addictive, sleek piece of modern, post-breakup pop. Entirely self-produced from his bedroom desk in NW London – and complete with slick harmonies and a chorus that will stick in your head for days, the twenty-two-year-old proves himself an artist worth taking note of.

Clearly influenced by John Mayer (check out that clean tone and those silky smooth runs) and Tom Misch, Waiting on Your Love also brings to mind artists such as Vulfpeck and Hot Chip in its simplicity. The addition of Max Elliott’s subtle, tasteful keys add a soulful element that serves to pull the whole thing together too. In terms of production, it’s very easy to go overboard and to keep adding more and more elements, and a real strength of the track is that the instrumentation has plenty of space to breathe.

Underneath the smooth licks and summer sweetness lies a lyric that picks up after a difficult break-up, but rather than wallowing in the situation it’s the optimism that shines through. It’s like ‘okay, that’s done. It’s dead, and do you know what? I’m better for it’. I like the finality of the chorus, and how the harmonies really hammer the message home. That the melody of the “love, love, love” refrain ascends is also a cool little touch. It’s pure positivity.

Seccombe has previously talked about how recording the track enabled him to gain some closure and move on from a previous relationship, and it’s this universal feeling that’s captured here. His intentions are clear right from the off too, with the opening lines “I just can’t shake off this feeling, that I needed something and you gave me nothing / Crushing my mind into pieces, when all that I need is to process and leave it”.

I love the loose feel of the guitars and the melodic bass dancing around the relatively static drum loop. The song hits a groove and just rides it until the end, and one can’t help but feel that – when/if normality returns – this is exactly the kind of track that will really come alive in a live setting. The fadeout bringing the song to a close is one of those that feels as though the track just keeps going. There’s a brief tease of a guitar solo, but it’s over too soon and you’re left with a feeling that somewhere – maybe in another life – it’s still going on.

In summary, Waiting on Your Love is great. It’s been rattling around in my brain for several days now, and I find myself humming the chorus around the house and out in the car. Seccombe is an artist I’ll be following from now on, and I really wouldn’t be surprised if bigger and better things await. In fact, I’ll be more surprised if they don’t.

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Find Sam Seccombe on Instagram and SoundCloud.

* This track was discovered via Musosoup. A small fee was paid in exchange for publication. See ‘About / Contact’ page for more details.