B-Side Guys

Jazz has always excelled at capturing emotional paradox—finding beauty in dissonance, comfort in melancholy. On “Old Familiar Feelin,” Sargeant X Comrade perfects this contradiction, crafting a track where heartbreak itself becomes almost welcoming in its reliability.

The production by Evgeniy (Comrade) establishes an intentional anachronism—72 BPM provides the canvas for Colin Adhikary’s deliberately understated drum work and Juno winner Daniel Neva’s acoustic bass, which together create a foundation that could exist in either 1955 or 2025. This temporal ambiguity supports Yolanda Sargeant’s declaration as the “Queen of Lo-Fi Soul,” a title justified through vocal delivery that channels Billie Holiday’s emotional authenticity while maintaining contemporary production sensibilities.

What distinguishes “Old Familiar Feelin” is its exploration of heartbreak as perversely comforting territory. When Sargeant sings about “laying down, staring at the ceiling, wondering how it all went wrong,” the arrangement momentarily pauses, creating negative space that mirrors the emotional emptiness being described. This production choice transforms straightforward heartbreak into something more complex—the strange comfort found in recognizable pain.

Particularly effective is the song’s bridge, where Sargeant’s repeated rejection of false promises (“Stop trying to play me for a fool”) receives instrumental reinforcement through subtle key modulation. This musical shift enhances the lyrical declaration of independence, creating a moment where vulnerability and strength coexist without contradiction.

As the opening statement from their forthcoming album “Power Vol. 1,” “Old Familiar Feelin” suggests Sargeant X Comrade has mastered their self-defined “lo-fi soul” genre. Their ability to synthesize jazz, soul, and electronic production techniques creates something simultaneously innovative and familiar—music that provides the strange comfort that comes from acknowledging emotional cycles rather than pretending they don’t exist.