Jeremy Engel’s new single “Ocean” leans into the quiet panic of feeling stuck in your own mind. Led by acoustic guitar and a steady emotional vocal, the track sits somewhere between modern folk and a softer kind of cinematic music. There are no distractions. No excessive layering. Just the sound of someone trying to get a thought out without losing it halfway through.
The presence of violin and Irish bouzouki gives the song its shape, while the strings swell behind the vocals like a thought that’s too big to hold back. It’s not polished in the sense of smoothing every edge down – some parts pull back, others rise without needing to peak. It’s not made for background listening, but it doesn’t fight for space either. It lands where it needs to: in the middle of tension and calm.
This is the kind of track that would sit well in a film scene where clarity is missing – where a character is lost in reflection or facing something they’ve been avoiding. The strings don’t push the emotion, they echo it. That’s why it works.
Jeremy Engel, who divides his time between interpreting for the United Nations and writing songs that feel far from diplomatic, has a style that carries pieces of his past. Time spent in Ireland shaped his songwriting, and the artists he mentions – Leonard Cohen, Damien Rice – make sense once you hear how he uses space and silence.
“Ocean” doesn’t pretend to be an answer. It sits in the question, and lets the music speak where words fall short.
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