Eye contact with a specific person setting your heart on fire? Life suddenly feeling infused with color and meaning and an unprecedented vitality? And has your hand recently grazed another hand on accident and was it far truer than time and space could ever be? You might have a crush. And the remedy might be “Be Here” by Oceanator, a recent single off of the band’s upcoming record Everything is Love and Death. 

Introduced by a fantastic cascade of instruments, “Be Here” immediately rushes towards us with an indie rock texture so effervescently full of summer desire that it could be a theme song for an 80s movie about late nights of ecstatic dance and true love*. Elise Okusami’s voice rings out after a shimmering guitar and a radiant synth riff, collecting the story in her own words. She’s here to observe the kaleidoscopic and meteorological event that is falling in love. 

 “Be Here” is about the first really long hangout/all night chat moment,” Okusami wrote on a recent Instagram post. Oh, the treasured all-night-chat-moment and its relentless intrigue. Many of us have been there, swept up in the push and pull of technicolor moments and anxious assessment. “I could be here with you,” she remarks amidst mentions of sparks, blazes, and clock-stopping chemistry. Could be. Perhaps ‘being here’ means acknowledging the parts of us that are hesitant to go all-in. This hesitation is nowhere to be found musically, however. Okusami sings about something delicate with a celebratory exuberance. Kind of like Bruce Springsteen**.

I saw Oceanator perform in 2018 (when they were on tour with the band Groupie). In that dark Rhode Island lounge, Okusami had the same punchy clarity, the same exciting ability to assure the audience that they are watching a masterful performer. In my mind, the fog in the room literally lifted as she shredded. Oceanator’s vitality has always been memorable. “Be Here” is no different. 

“I didn’t mean to fall in love with you,” Okusami admits towards the song’s end, weaving an even more vulnerable confession into the luminous panorama of notes, hopes, and accolades. After a magnificent moment where each instrument*** seems as if it’s climbing towards the sun, the glistening scene dilates into a vibrant polyphonic outro. “I could be here / I didn’t mean / I could be here / with you / to fall in love with you.” It’s as if she’s accomplished her goal: showing up to the feelings that matter. “Be Here” is a crush anthem and an aspirational coalescence of desire.

*= Footloose (1984), anyone?                                                                                                      **= Personally, I thought of “No Surrender”                                                        ***= Okusami is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist -  it’s extremely worth noting that she plays every instrument on this track.

Everything is Love and Death comes out on August 30th, 2024.

Written by Clara Zornado