California-based artist Lydia Kaseta recently debuted her latest dreamy low-fi track, ‘Hate The Day’, on streaming services, and it’s a complex love song made for the social media age. 

Kaseta’s vulnerable, emotional vocals are complemented by a haunting backing track as she describes the sensation of knowing that a relationship is impermanent and that the feelings involved in it will soon pass. Speaking about the song to The Daily Listening, she explained that it was “influenced by a personal story of falling for another songwriter who broke my heart”. “I’d hold onto the lyrics he’d write in his songs, wondering if they were messages to me,” she added, “Knowing that one day, his songs about love or heartbreak would be messages meant for someone else.” 

Despite the chorus’s specification of the track’s subject being a songwriter themselves with the lines, “I’m gonna hate the day you write your last song about me”, the sentiment of wanting to be on someone’s mind is universally relatable. Captured also is the difficulty of pulling away when keeping tabs on someone through social media is such an easy alternative. Kaseta sings, in her soothingly mellow style, “once in a while, I look you up online / It’s how I know I miss you, I can’t get you off my mind.” 

Kaseta specialises in heart wrenching expressions of deep feeling in her music, using atmospheric strings and muted instrumentals. This approach proves to be the ideal ground for exploring ‘Hate The Day’s central concept — the inescapability of a fading love connection. Here, the delicacy of this feeling is treated with extreme care, and the result is a truly gorgeous and evocative track. 

Words by Eleanor Burleigh