In 2023, indie rock band oddweek released a music video for their second single, “Our Time” on YouTube. It’s a homemade video initially feels like another vlog of friends wandering around Lumut, where the band is based until you pay closer attention to the lyrics and realise it’s a remembrance of frontman Haziq Hamsa’s late father. We see Haziq drifting through town as the sun sets, and that’s when the blanketing sense of grief slowly takes centre stage. “I cry I cry / this evening sun / and I’m losing / You’re the one.” It’s a devastating song, the kind you only truly understand when grief has soured, when it no longer feels like just another emotion. You want to get it framed, so you can remember this exact feeling.

That feeling later blossomed into the six-track EP, Field of Light. At its core, this EP is more than just an attempt to recount the memories of a young man growing up in a small town — it’s painted with broader, more vivid strokes, so that each memory is etched deeply into Haziq Hamsa’s mind. Grief often erodes our ability to recall our loved ones, blurring faces and moments until they feel just out of reach. In Field of Light, Haziq attempts to capture these heavy feelings, framing them like photographs, hoping they remain exactly as they were.

The titular track — deliberately crafted as the EP’s luminous opener and also a massive highlight — finds Haziq pouring one out for his small town, where life moves at a standstill: “This city getting boring with same old sound / like a group of birds chirping as the sun goes down / I’m getting older / You getting older.” Anchored by nostalgic guitars, he drifts through the quiet corners of Lumut, a fishing town where boredom feels inevitable, yet life hums on. There’s a stillness to it, a familiarity that lingers. It’s proof that even in stagnation, there’s something to love.

Much of the EP carries the unfiltered naivety of Snail Mail’s early songwriting, paired with the lucid melodies of indie rockers like Say Sue Me. The writing stems from a young man weighed down by the quiet pressures of adulthood and the unspoken expectations to move on. This is especially evident in “I’ll Be There” where the lyrics lay it bare: “I love you and you’re a bit emotional today / I’ll come to you every time you need me / I’ll be there.” There’s a naïve honesty in the lines written for this EP — both in the search for the right words to portray the right feelings and even the limits of vocabulary — but that naivety can also become a strength. There’s no fear nor shame in it. 

Released in mid-December, when the year winds down and the monsoon season washes over our lingering emotions, oddweek’s delicate and juvenile approach to grief in Field of Light propels their sound into a deeply compelling debut work. Whether intentional or not, oddweek has managed to immortalise the planet-sized weight of ordinary human emotions. These songs make the heavy feelings feel a little less lonely.

Stream Field of Light on Bandcamp: