Is there anything sweeter or more all-consuming than your first taste of young love? For many of us, that relationship experience still holds a certain bittersweet nostalgia and that’s exactly what Los Angeles-based artist teo tala captures with his new single ‘t-shirt sleeves’. Imbued with the uplifting melodies of 2010s pop reminiscent of early Harry Styles and a breezy warmth akin to Jason Mraz, this song is a heart-on-sleeve reflection of a short-lived romance. From the very start, teo tala drops listeners straight into the rom-com narrative with his easy-going pop vocals: “you should take up running cause you move so fast, built the romance out of straw and you thought it would last, there’s about a billion things I didn’t see, but I saw you with a new guy in the shape of me.”

Throughout ‘t-shirt sleeves’, teo tala’s conversational delivery is so charming and you can really sense his engaging personality through those cheeky lyrics. For the most part, the track keeps to an upbeat rhythm with those pop-rock drums and lighthearted strings, yet the artist shows off his versatility with a soulful interlude around the 1:10 minute mark. This provides a peek behind the armour to reveal the deeper emotional damage. This vivid storytelling is what makes ‘t-shirt sleeves’ a much more nuanced take on teenage heartbreak than we expected. teo tala is undoubtedly one to watch.

Follow teo tala on Instagram.