Oakland Singer Stoney Creation Finds Herself In ‘Dark Spaces’

Welcome to Pass the Aux, where every week we feature new music by Bay Area artists. Check out past entries and submit a song for future coverage here.

“Dark Spaces,” by Oakland singer Stoney Creation, is a world unto itself that opens the door and says “come on in.” A full minute of billowy synthesizers and lush soprano saxophone opens the track—welcoming, promising, expectant—until the first lines finally draw the image: “I found myself, in the dark, waiting for him.”

The song is a highlight of Stoney Creation’s new EP, if it resonates…, a collection of inviting tracks that reflect on the self, and how to more smoothly align it with a jagged world. Much of that inviting nature comes from the sonic quality itself; take the thumps and finger-snaps of “Dark Spaces,” evoking an old-time street corner doo-wop session, the definition of putting oneself out there in a public space. But, like the best hits of the doo-wop era, its songs’ themes aren’t always so light.

Hazy, woozy R&B has been in vogue for nearly a decade now. But Stoney Creation’s approach is less about pills and fame and centered more on reflection and self-love. (If you’ve ever lost yourself in Tweet’s song “Drunk,” from 2002’s Southern Hummingbird, you’ll recognize “Dark Spaces” as a spiritual descendant.) By the song’s end, the horns become layered in harmony over an ascending piano glissando, suggesting a resolution, or even a rapture. Close your eyes, and you can feel the ancient wisdom: that even though you sometimes gotta go through turmoil to reach it, peace is attainable.

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