B-Side Guys

From London’s liminal spaces comes a haunting meditation on rekindled desire. Colombian transplant Enla Arboleda’s “When The Light Goes Out” inhabits the dangerous territory between memory and possibility, where former lovers navigate by touch in self-imposed darkness.

The production’s marriage of jazz elements with modern electronics creates a sonic twilight zone that perfectly mirrors the song’s emotional landscape. Drum machines sketch out mechanical heartbeats while synthesizers float like smoke through the mix, creating an atmosphere where certainty dissolves into possibility.

Arboleda’s seven years of conservatory training reveal themselves in subtle ways – jazz-inflected guitar phrases that curl like question marks through the arrangement, harmonic choices that add sophisticated shading to seemingly simple progressions. Yet these technical elements never overshadow the raw vulnerability at the song’s core.

The lyrics paint a portrait of two people caught between knowing too much and wanting to forget. “To pretend we don’t know each other / To pretend our past is over” captures the impossible task of temporary amnesia that reunion requires. It’s a paradox Arboleda explores with remarkable nuance, allowing the tension to build without forcing resolution.

The chorus’s refrain of “burning in fire” transforms from metaphor to mantra as the track progresses, suggesting both passion and self-immolation. This duality runs throughout the piece – every moment of connection is also a moment of risk, every familiar touch carries the weight of past wounds.

Arboleda’s production work demonstrates remarkable restraint. Each element – from the softly pulsing synths to the precisely placed percussion – serves the song’s narrative of nocturnal reconnection. The space between sounds becomes as important as the sounds themselves, creating room for listeners to project their own experiences of ambiguous reconciliation.

The repeated plea “Oh love give me an answer” emerges not as a question but as a prayer, floating above the instrumental landscape like smoke signals to an unseeing sky. It’s in these moments that Arboleda’s unique perspective as a Colombian artist in London adds particular resonance – the sensation of being simultaneously insider and outsider, familiar and strange.

What sets “When The Light Goes Out” apart is its resistance to easy judgment. Rather than frame this reunion as triumph or tragedy, Arboleda presents it as a moment of pure potential – two people reaching through darkness toward something that might be salvation or might be flame. The ambiguity feels earned rather than affected.

As a preview of his upcoming album, this track suggests an artist ready to transform personal displacement into universal resonance. Arboleda has created something that transcends both genre and geography – a nocturne for anyone who’s ever been drawn back to a fire they know might burn.