Brooklyn sextet Arthur Moon are set to drop their Our Head EP later this month. Instead of throwing all of the versatility the band’s six pieces have to offer at the listener at the same time, they choose to minimally complement each other, resulting in wonderfully spaced, open arrangements for Lora-Faye Ashuvud’s delicate vocals to occupy. The first offering from the EP is “Wind Up,” and it’s a sparse excursion with lots of gravity.

The track begins heavy with the spoken quote “The imagination is schooled to accept service in place of value” and ends the same way with “I realize that it was something like engineering people. That our society doesn’t only produce artifact things, but artifact people.” The sounds sandwiched between those sober quotes slowly build to evocative heights with spacious drum hits, ambient sweeps, subtle electric guitar, and synth layers that carefully fill around Ashuvud’s vocals. As her piercing lyrics slowly wind up the tension like a jack in the box, the contemplative quotes come in intermittently underneath as well. Ashuvud had this to say about the song:

I’m interested in the peculiar human trait of finding pleasure in disorientation. Thinking about how this happens in social institutions, I wrote “Wind Up” about an injured bird who is nursed back to health by having her body slowly replaced by mechanical parts until nothing is left but a wind-up toy.

I’m always appreciative when artists can communicate so much with so little. Check it out below.

The Our Head EP is out 3/25.