I love songs that make your brain feel a little slippery. The kind that don’t announce themselves with drama just quietly rearrange your insides while you’re standing there pretending you’re cool. ‘Permanently Blue’ slid into my night like that. No warning. No sharp edges. Just this slow pull where suddenly I’m staring at the ceiling, body loose, with thoughts wandering somewhere unsafe. It feels intimate in a way that sneaks up on you. Private. A little dangerous. The kind of track you put on when you’re trying to stay in control and absolutely failing at it. Okay, tell me you haven’t had a song do this to you at least once.
Ulmenthal knows exactly what kind of spell she’s casting here. From the first breathy lines, the song lives in that soft-focus headspace where attraction messes with your sense of direction. “Oh, so I lost my mind tonight with you / Got nowhere else to go” isn’t chaos. It’s consent. That moment where you stop pretending you’re grounded and let yourself drift toward someone because resisting takes more energy than surrender. Fighting it feels like too much fucking work. The delivery feels close, like she’s leaning in just enough to make you hold your breath. I swear you can hear the smile she’s trying not to give away – the one that knows exactly what it’s doing to you.
Advertisement
The repetition hits where it’s supposed to. “’Cause all I want is you / I’m permanently blue.” It’s obsessive without sounding desperate. Blue here isn’t heartbreak. It’s that low-grade ache that comes from wanting something you don’t fully trust yet. Desire that lingers longer than certainty. I’ve been there. And if you’re honest, you probably have too. That floaty limbo where you’re glowing and uneasy at the same time, high on connection and already bracing for the comedown. Your body says yes. Your brain stays quiet. Your chest feels heavy anyway. That’s the shit that keeps you up.
And that balloon line. Goddamn. “I’m hanging on balloons.” Weightless and unstable at the same time. Floating, held together by something fragile. One sharp moment away from popping. I picture her suspended, toes barely touching the ground, dress swaying, eyes unfocused. It’s sexy in that unsteady way where everything feels a little unreal. You don’t want to come down yet. You also know you will. That’s the whole fucking problem.
The production feeds that feeling perfectly. Static bass humming underneath synthetic arps that shimmer and pulse, like lights blurring when your eyes won’t focus. It’s hypnotic without trying too hard. The beat doesn’t rush you. It lets you sink. It reminds me of replaying the “are you up?” text to the person you swore you were done with, not sending it, not deleting it, letting the song hold you there instead of making a call.
Then she drops language altogether. The ladada ladanda section feels vacant in the best way. When emotion gets too tangled to name, sound takes over. It loops. It soothes. It dissociates. I’ve absolutely done this in real life — humming to myself, zoning out, pretending everything’s cool while my mind drifts somewhere inconvenient. Somewhere with a name and a contact photo. It’s pretty. It’s empty. It works.
Advertisement
The second verse shifts the energy without snapping the spell. “Oh, let some time go by / Tell me where it hurts / And I’ll know where to run.” That’s care offered softly, not performatively. She’s present. She’s attentive. She’s ready to show up. There’s intimacy in knowing where someone hurts and choosing to come back anyway. And then she promises, “I will be with you,” and immediately undercuts it with “You don’t believe me.” That line lands quietly and fucks me up every time. Devotion offered into a space where trust hasn’t caught up yet. That’s the ache. That’s the risk.
Ulmenthal, the hypnotic solo project from Estonian singer-producer Eeva Trei, thrives in this emotional in-between. She calls her world hypnopop, babecore, sad disco, and honestly, all of it tracks. There’s something disarming about the way she lets softness coexist with tension. Her visuals lean into that too — dolled up, blue-lit, slightly removed from reality, searching for connection in places that feel temporary and exposed. A music shop window as a dance floor makes perfect sense for someone drawn to moments that shimmer and disappear.
‘Permanently Blue’ feels intoxicating in that quiet way. Sweet and sad. The kind of song that doesn’t blow up your life, just nudges you off balance and waits to see what you do next. I put it on and feel my shoulders drop, my thoughts blur, my body lean toward something I probably shouldn’t. Real talk? Sometimes that’s exactly the mood.
