I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the version of myself that still believed in magic. Before the bills, before I learned that “casual” was somehow safer than admitting you actually gave a shit about someone. I had this friend in high school who kept a shoebox of concert tickets and polaroids, all these tiny moments from when we were 16. We’d get drunk on cheap wine, dig through it and at ourselves. Called ourselves naive. We weren’t naive. We just hadn’t figured out yet that caring less was supposed to protect us.
This track glows. Harlee Case’s vocals drift through 80s synths that feel like memory but sound like right now. Dream pop with actual longing in it, actual ache under the shimmer. Josh Smith’s production has that 2am quality where conversations get real and you stop performing. You know that feeling when you wake up from a dream and you’re pissed it ended? That.
Case and Smith have known each other since they were kids. He recorded her first songs in his bedroom when she was 14. While he spent the next decade playing and touring with bands around the northwest, she was building a whole community around female empowerment and getting weed legalized. He spent a decade touring with bands around the northwest. She built a community around female empowerment and getting weed legalized. Then they came back to make music together. That history lives in this track—they don’t rush each other, don’t need to fill every space.
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The lyrics talk to a younger version of themselves. That could feel heavy. It doesn’t. It feels fucking freeing. “Flipping through my photo book / Remembering the times that we cried / Quietly under our shades / Wishing for a different kind of life” opens the track. Looking back at who you were when you thought you could control what happened next. The tenderness in that gets me. How much energy we waste being embarrassed about caring too much when we were younger.
What really lands is when Case sings “I keep you in the edge of my mind / Wish I could show you what we’d end up like.” It’s this moment of wanting to comfort that younger scared version of yourself. Tell her it’s going to be okay. That you made it through. The song becomes this conversation between past and present, and somewhere in the middle you realize you’re the bridge between both versions. “Sleeping through our biggest dreams / Scared to face what waking up would be like”—damn if that doesn’t cut right to it. How many years did we waste being too afraid to actually want things?
Then comes “Maybe you should cut your hair? / Fuck it let’s just dye it pink / Trust when inspiration strikes / Find out where it’s meant to lead”. Those small, kind of silly risks—dyeing your hair pink just because you want to—that don’t change everything but remind you that you’re allowed to want things just for yourself. We stopped doing that somewhere.
The production builds through these waves of synth that feel celestial without being cheesy. There’s space in the mix for everything to breathe. Smith’s decade of playing in bands shows up in how he layers sounds—nothing feels random or showy. It’s all in service of the feeling. Case and Smith have this chemistry that only comes from years of knowing each other, of growing up and growing apart and finding their way back. It defines ‘musical journey.’
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When the bridge hits with all those “maybes”—“Maybe it’s not out of your control / Maybe it’s okay to let it go / Maybe we were never on our own”—everything shifts. All that control we’re trying to maintain? The song asks what happens if you let go. Letting yourself believe in possibility again. The repetition of “maybe” becomes this mantra, each one loosening the hold of fear a little more. “Maybe there’s more than maybe in the unknown” lands like an invitation to stop being so goddamn certain about everything.
The final section shifts into something almost meditative: “Whispers in the sand / I see beyond the sun / It’s bigger than I am / When I believe in all of us.” Case’s voice gets more layered here, harmonies stacking like versions of yourself all singing together. Past, present, future—all believing at once. “The pictures of the past / The space where I become / The version that I can / Believe in the best for all of us.” There’s something about that line—believing in the best for ALL of us, instead of just yourself—that turns the whole song outward. Makes it about something larger than one person’s journey back to hope.
This song didn’t fix my commitment issues. But cynicism is exhausting. Hope takes less effort, turns out. The things I want might actually happen if I stop being so fucking scared of wanting them. Sometimes you need permission to feel something real again. This gives you that.
‘Believe Again’ is New Constellations’ first release since signing with Nettwerk, which tells you someone at that label knows what’s up. This Portland duo makes music that glows. Dreamlike but honest about the feeling underneath. More music like this from them? I’m here for it. This one’s for when you stop running from the version of yourself that still believes in magic. Play it loud and Let it remind you who you were before you learned to be afraid.
