Sycco – “I've Loved And I've Lost”

We’re treating loving and losing like a diagnosis when Sycco has gone and put both on her résumé. I like her version better. You got to love something. You lost something. Maybe picked up a few transferable skills along the way. Nobody gets out with the original packaging.

Better yet, Sycco has turned the evidence into a pop song. “I've Loved And I've Lost” walks in dressed like a downtempo ballad, but there are hooks hiding under the hem. The production doesn't crowd around them asking if anyone needs anything. A beat lands, the vocals change shape, another detail wanders in, and everybody minds their own business. This record has excellent boundaries.

Then I saw Chrome Sparks and Oscar Sharah in the production credits and thought, well, that explains a few things. Much of Sycco’s forthcoming Look Up was built with Sharah and longtime collaborator Chrome Sparks, including drums made from scratch on synths and layers of manipulated vocals. There’s some graduate-level wisdom happening under the hood, but nobody is making us sit through the PowerPoint. Sycco is 25. She sounds 25. Good. We have enough young people making music like they’ve already refinanced the house.

We’ve loved. We’ve lost. We’ve learned how to turn it into a pop song and cope. Put it on the résumé.