Dave Invisible Feel Love

It’s really hard to swoon over a song and not be able to find it in the depths of the internet. I hope these words do justice.

My beau recently picked up Ninja Tune and If Music’s 10th anniversary album if, which features 12 perplexing tracks from 12 elusive artists. I keep returning to the 2013 Record Store Day release, and my ears keep hovering over the first track.

The internet lacks satisfactory details around Invisible Dave and his demure “Feel Love” demo. However, my journalistic, creeping skills sniffed out some plausible conclusions. Ninja Tune supports a London-based, veteran band called The Invisible. The singer/guitarist of this trio is named Dave Okumu. Could it be that Okumu simply gifted us one song under this guise? All signs say yes.

“Feel Love” is alluring and delicate. A warm whisper, a reflective ghost lingering in the corners of your apartment. I feel both sensuous and sexless with this track on repeat.

Okumu is worthy of a much longer post, from what I’ve been reading. Perhaps even a novel. The Invisible trio, who forged friendships as teens, formed the band in 2006. Their debut album was nominated for the 2009 Mercury Music Prize, and was critics’’ choice for iTunes album of the year.

Mid-way through recording the band’s second album, Okumu’s mother passed away. The band was “thrown into turmoil,” and Okumu pulled away from music. When he revisited his voice, Rispah would become “a love letter to grief.” It was eventually released in 2012.

That same year, Okumu was electrocuted while performing live in Lagos, Nigeria. His life has been credited to his bandmate, Tom, who pulled his charged guitar from his hands. All of these events have given me pause.

The list of acts and artists these three musicians have helped produce, and performed alongside, would take chapters to explain. I have so much more discovering to do.

Dave Okumu.
Dave Invisible.
The Invisible.

These are all interchangeable titles to songs that will sink into your heart, and lead you to wonder how you lived so many years without these sounds.