Neacal is the emerging solo chamber pop project of a Belgrade-based musician who unveiled his debut single ‘The Bell’ on July 19th, 2024 via Neacal Music. An esteemed singer-songwriter, producer and composer, Neacal’s journey began as the founder of one of the most revered instrumental progressive/post-rock bands from Eastern Europe, garnering nearly 5 million streams across platforms and tours in Europe and Asia, along with writing original soundtracks for numerous video games.
‘The Bell’ was written, produced and mixed by Neacal, with co-mixing by Ivan Lubianyi and mastering by the legendary Ian Shepherd (Deep Purple, New Order). The single features twirling piano motifs which create movement and prepare for a cascading array of delightful melodies. It’s contrasted by a rich, velvety voice and builds to a full-bodied ending that leaves the listener grasping for more.
The music video is eerie and grim, with Neacal donning a stoic facial expression throughout. Shot in a natural landscape, the video features lush greenery, rustic abandoned buildings, and gloomy skies. With Neacal as the focal point throughout, he is seen in various settings participating in seemingly random activities like wandering aimlessly, throwing stones, removing a blindfold and hanging upside down from a tree. All of this brilliantly expands on the theme of confinement, and the illusion of powerlessness which form the basis of the single. The video ends with Neacal standing in an expanse of grass, while the sky cracks open with lightning and thunder symbolising his breakthrough.
Neacal shared: “’The Bell’ is a song of a then suppressed part of myself that came to recognise its own power. A fraction of me which I buried deep down and hadn’t been in contact with since the beginning of my cognition was slowly getting stronger throughout the period when this album was created… and the “prison” holding this inmate started to slowly crumble. In ‘The Bell’, the prisoner explores the inevitable escape, and it realises its agency – it knows that the change that is to come will take place not just when the barrier is weak enough, but when the prisoner will apply the pressure as well, leading on the charge with other demons kept locked at the time.”
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