Singled Out: Mauri Dark's Thin Line Of Understanding

Keavin Wiggins | 12-15-2020

Mauri Dark just released his debut solo album, "Dreams Of A Middle-Aged Man," and to celebrate he tells us about the single "Thin Line Of Understanding". Here is the story:

"Thin Line Of Understanding" is about the fragility of connection with your loved one. Exploring the borderline between comfortable and awkward silence. We all know the situation where it feels really good just to be around someone without saying anything, just silently understanding another human being. On the other hand, silence can be annoying with someone. You are tempted to break it with speech.

The song is also about distancing and reconnecting. How lives can drift apart or the connection come back again. How people can change with time. How we think we know someone who turns out to be a complete stranger. These are the kind of things I thought about a lot. The spiritual loneliness inside of our heads that we just can't get rid of and because of it seek for like-minded people to connect with. People are now more isolated than ever with quarantines and lockups going on due to COVID-19 and we seek connection and understanding from the internet that is a bit nasty, cold world full of misunderstanding.

Of all the upcoming albums songs, I felt I got the emotional fragility and interpretation of the song recorded best which is sometimes really, really hard to capture to a studio recording. I sat in a room and accompanied myself with guitar and played it live. Later added some acoustic piano and a string arrangement to the end. Pink Floydish sounding ambient electric guitars are actually an effected acoustic guitar from a guitar amp heard from another room. The arrangement turned out pretty nice. The song goes from really tiny, intimate, softly and low sang to big, high sang and powerful. The high notes in my vocal range being somewhere in the baritone range, the low notes in bass range. The part where the vocal rises progresses nicely. The chorus guitar and piano melody conversates nicely with the vocals. If you can say that about my dark folky, intimate songs, this one has got the most pop flavor but also pretty progressive, mystic chord changes in the break part. I actually looked it up from the internet afterwards what chords I play on the break part. I just put my fingers on the guitar fretboard and look for right combinations on notes without knowing the chord. Whatever feels right is the right chord. That is how I understand music.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more about the album here