With the uncertainty of life and the guarantee of unease that 2020 has so far provided, it’s fair game for some artists and projects to pull back creatively and wait out the proverbial storm. For New York City’s Komanda, however, a different course has been taken.
The songwriter and producer duo of Ed Zisk and Phillip Alexeev dropped their fifth single of the year last month, a confident jolt of breezy alt-pop titled “Begin Again” that lines up nicely alongside recent efforts from Empire of the Sun and X Ambassadors. The track centers on a relationship in its final stages, lyrically exploring themes of blissful memories confronted by a bitter reality. It sounds a lot like the year we’ve all been having.
“‘Begin Again’ is about the final exhales of a relationship, the kind where both parties are reluctant to move on,” say Komanda, their project moniker taken from the English transliteration of the Russian word for team. “The verses represent the intimate moments in the couple’s life while the chorus opens up into the self-reflective, healing stage that each individual hopefully achieves after wounds have calloused.”
Komanda have been busy through the year “working on our own form of sunshine,” they say, adding: “It’s the only coping mechanism we have to deal with some of the crazy shit going on in the world, and we hope we can provide music fans with some small beacon of human connection through our tunes.”
It sounds fantastic so far, and we certainly can’t wait for society’s own opportunity to “Begin Again.”