Central Islip, New York’s Heistheartist’s Under the Influence of Love (Acoustic Soul) is an impressive achievement. I knew after hearing the EP’s six recordings that Heistheartist now has a release to his credit that bridges every possible gap between his evangelical ambitions as an artist and the secular music world. You don’t need to believe in God to love this EP. It helps, I am sure, but what I hear more than anything else is the intense humanity woven through the Christian singer/songwriter’s voice. His vocal beginnings as a neo-soul singer are audible throughout Under the Influence of Love.
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His taste is impeccable. Opening with an instrumental cover of Amy Winehouse’s “Me and Mr. Jones” sets the table for Heistheartist’s storytelling. He’s built the EP around the premise of exploring the rise and fall of a romantic relationship while also assessing God’s place in his life and our world. It is an arguably audacious move for a young musical artist to take material from other songwriters and use it for the framework of their musical narrative, a quasi-conceptual release in this case. To his credit, Heistheartist makes it work.
“Boom (Doo Wop Version)” is a new mix of Heistheartist’s first releases. Doo wop traditionalists may demur, but it’s easily the commercial highlight of the EP and plays as the release’s first proper song for a reason. Everything about Under the Influence of Love is deliberate. Heistheartist puts his proverbial best foot forward with this cut. “Caught Out There (Acoustic)” is the EP’s first cover. Kelis’ original is in good hands as the stark yet lyrical interpretation for this release opens previously unexplored emotional vistas for the song. This capacity for reinvention is the mark of musical art.
“Ungodly Hour (Acoustic)” comes from a similar place structurally. It’s another largely solo piece with the focus falling on Heistheartist’s voice and acoustic guitar. There are backing vocals during this track though some may hear them as superfluous. It’s another cover, this time calling on Chloe X Halle’s songwriting, but Heistheartist reshapes the song into something different. It’s a guitar powered meditation on the moments when we need redemption, when we are searching for a new way through. The slow soulful slink of “God is On My Mind” is the EP’s final song with vocals and one of the EP’s most sensitive moments. Heistheartist invests each line with breathy atmospherics that never risk bathos. It’s true soul in every sense of the word.
It caught my attention from the outset that Heistheartist begins and ends the EP with short instrumentals. Under the Influence of Love closes with “Out My Mind, Just in Time” culls Erykah Badu’s catalog for another solo piano performance. I haven’t heard a new musical artist who can re-invent the songs of other writers with such a singular vision. It makes his balancing of new horizons with the song’s roots stand out more. Central Islip’s Heistheartist has a life-changing presence in his everyday life and the EP’s six songs convey it without artifice or agenda. It’s worth checking out today.
Heather Savage