‘coda’ by amateur theatre group: A dark delight

by aura and brooke

You could be entirely forgiven for thinking you were getting a folksy-shoegazy love ballad for the first 45 seconds of amateur theatre group’s new single, ‘coda’, available on streaming services on February 14.

Slow strumming of the acoustic guitar complete with string scratches. Gentle punctuation from the drums, adding subtle depth and rhythmic structure. Deep, ethereal, and emotionally evocative vocals on the repeated first line “I have fallen in love.” If you’re thinking Bon Iver right now, yeah… so were we!

But then it takes an unexpected somber turn (admittedly, perhaps not so unexpected for those more familiar with amateur theatre group than we were before our first listen). The music progresses into a darker soundscape with lots of experimental flavours introduced into the mix, while the remaining lyrics pack something of a gut punch (including one dark line, in particular, that certainly raised our eyebrows).

With some interesting drums and sound effects that give an almost eerie quality, the songs delves into “the struggles of love and longing for someone when you don’t yet know whether that person will be able to love you back”. With an ending that made Brooke’s visiting brother literally say “that’s it?! it’s over?”, ‘coda’ conveys both the meaning of its title and the emotion of its central struggle with intimate brilliance. A surprising and affecting tune, indeed!

Most of amateur theatre group’s music is performed, recorded and produced by Andrew James Murphy, though “it continues to be an open collective that could not exist without the copious and luminous talents of brothers Davy and Iain Berryman”. The trio, who met as school pals in Shropshire, UK, are longtime collaborators who have played music together for almost two decades.

Fun fact: ‘coda’ was initially released as a cassette-only bonus track on the EP wake up, doldrums, out December 2023. We highly recommend that you give the track a listen at the end of the EP. The song in context is, somehow, even better.

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