Saka’s new record is a soft, soft thing, and a pure delight to listen to — joyful and cosy, the kind of music we sometimes overlook precisely because it isn’t clamouring for attention. Instead, it invites us in, gently, and when we listen we are readily pleased to sink into it. I find myself playing the album while staying in my grandparents’ house, looking out of a window that frames a view straight out of an Enid Blyton enchanted forest. Perhaps that’s why Thlasik Kawng feels so warmly familiar: it has the quality of being at home, even when you are not.
The title translates as “The Milky Way Galaxy,” and Saka’s concept is that we can never see the galaxy in its entirety from within it, just as we often fail to notice that we are already living in the dreams we once thought were unattainable. It’s a big metaphor, but the music itself is delicate, understated, almost private in tone. Gentle guitar lines, whisper-soft synth pads, and lightly brushed rhythms form the palette.
The early highlight Ṭah lai bang rawh feels like a lullaby written to his younger self — a tender reassurance that things do turn out, even if worry once seemed overwhelming. It’s the sort of song that feels both soothing and quietly wise, its acoustic melodies circling like a hand resting on your shoulder. Later, Van Pawl swells with layered harmonies and darker guitar tones, the sonic texture flickering like lightening to mirror the unease of letting go of a love you can’t sustain. Saka’s strength lies in this pairing of sound and story: the production never overwhelms, but it always seems to echo the emotional truth.
The middle section of the record drifts into unrequited love songs, and here the music becomes more dreamlike. Reverb-heavy guitars shimmer in and out, vocals loop and blur, and the whole thing takes on a half-real, half-imagined quality. It is music that longs, circling endlessly around absence, conjuring the strange sweetness of obsession and the sting of being merely “a friend of a friend.” You can almost feel the songs dissolving into thin air, leaving behind a glow.
By contrast, Duhlai Mangtha pares everything back to near silence. It is beautiful and dreamy and probably the song you will want to listen to on repeat the most.This farewell, not to a lover, but to the hope of one — is all fragile guitar and breathy pauses. It captures the peculiar grief of letting go of something that never truly existed, an emotional weight many singers stumble over but Saka renders with precision and grace.
The final track looks not at desire but at childhood, and its sound carries the warmth of a folk hymn. There is looseness in the playing, a soft glow that recalls the innocence of friendships before adulthood scattered them. It is wistful rather than sad, offering a quiet blessing for those friends, wherever they are. Listening to Thlasik Kawng makes you feel like you are being enveloped by a sonic quilt. At a time when pop music is built to be consumed quickly, Saka has made an album that slows the heart-rate and lingers with you like the glow of a playful everlasting childhood evening.
