There’s a particular kind of silence after a breakup: a heavy, echoing stillness that no amount of noise can quite cover. Uusikaupunki’s “Only With You” leans all the way into that quiet. This track is one that just sits in the raw, unfilled space where someone used to be; and it does it beautifully.
Anchored in the soft dissonance of slacker rock and the woozy haze of psychedelic art rock, the track takes its time. You can hear the imprint of Sonic Youth’s atmosphere, the unpolished emotional weight of Neil Young, and the diary-style simplicity of post-Beatles Lennon. But what emerges is no pastiche; this is deeply personal, a solo project that sounds like it could only have come from one very specific emotional storm.
“Only With You” doesn’t try to fix the sadness, it just is sad. There’s no need for perfectly tuned vocals or glossy production. The voice wavers. The mix breathes. Sometimes it feels like the song might fall apart entirely, but that’s what makes it hold together. It sounds exactly like heartbreak feels: raw, fragile, and strangely clear.
The track opens Uusikaupunki’s three-song EP, which explores themes of loss, identity, and transformation. While later songs dip into funk and 70s soul (with nods to Marvin Gaye and Isaac Hayes), this opener is pared down, unfiltered, and emotionally naked. You feel every unfinished sentence and every pause between chords like a sigh held too long.
It was recorded inside an East London art gallery turned DIY studio, and that unconventional environment, full of found sounds and analog grit, bleeds into every corner of the track. You’re not just listening to a song. You’re listening to someone survive something.
“Only With You” captures the moment before healing starts, the moment when you’re just… there. Alone. Unsure. Still holding the outline of a person who’s gone. For anyone who’s ever sat in that space, this song doesn’t offer a way out. It offers company; and sometimes, that’s exactly what we need..
