B-Side Guys

The central paradox in “On Holiday” lives in those repeated lines: “Oh my shadow, you’re way up high / I can see you for miles and miles.” Shadows don’t float above us, yet this one does—a reversal that Daniel Lyon and Daniel “Connor” Birch use to collapse the distance between observation and intimacy. What begins as image becomes confession when Reiter addresses both shadow and love interchangeably, as if proximity has erased the boundary between person and their outline.

Ash Reiter’s vocal performance from Sugar Candy Mountain brings a doubled quality that reinforces this merger. Her delivery stays measured and dreamy, letting the mantra-like repetition of “oh my shadow” build hypnotic momentum without urgency. Lyon and Birch construct the production around negative space—synths that hover rather than drive, rhythms that pulse gently beneath rather than push forward. This restraint makes sense for a duo whose work merges krautrock’s motorik drive with electronic grandeur, here choosing suspension over propulsion.

The song was conceived specifically for listening during travel, and that intention shapes every choice. Mid-tempo pacing mirrors the stillness that comes from movement—staring out windows, time passing without effort, the meditative state of being in transit. “On the way, holiday with you” doesn’t describe arrival but the journey itself, that stretched-out present tense where destination matters less than who sits beside you.

Reiter’s lines reveal something deeper about closeness: the shadow seen “for miles and miles” suggests we can perceive our beloveds even at distance, carrying their outline in our sight line like persistent afterimages. The track refuses drama or crescendo, maintaining its woozy warmth throughout. Lyon and Birch’s collaboration with Reiter produces something genuinely beachside and comatose—not escapist fantasy but the actual texture of contentment, where love stops feeling like separate entity and becomes as constant and unavoidable as the shadow you cast in sunlight.