BEST NEW CHILL: AYIA - RUINS

We Are The Guard’s latest pick for “Best New Track” is a haunting symphony. Ayia’s “Ruins” weaves indistinguishable vocals and instrumentals together that spiral into another glass-cutting universe. The trio that make up the band are about as mysterious as their new song. “Ruins” follows last year’s debut single, “Water Plant,” that is just as immersive, but where “Ruins” is dark, its predecessor is light.

AYIA - RUINS

Icelandic poet Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir delivers choral notes that travel from one verse to another like a ghost. In all honesty, I haven’t a clue was she is saying, but it doesn’t really matter. Her hymns and whispers emote what words cannot. Reverb, crackling, cymbals, and surreal noises fuse together to bend genres. This track reminds me a bit of a warped version of Hundred Waters – filled with high- key vocals, airy synths, and peculiar, head-tilting experimentation.

As for what is coming up next for Ayia? Hopefully, it is a compilation, because this song is like a short story we never want to end. Based on the two songs we have heard from Ayia, an album from them could very well take us from one song to another, on a journey of human emotion that spoken words could never express. Maybe we’ll get what we want, we only hope it takes less than a year this time.