I spent a good portion of the summer of ’95 laying on my apartment floor late at night, long after everyone else had fallen asleep, while Soulwhirlingsomewhere’s debut album played on repeat. That was a particularly rough patch in my life, and Eating the Sea’s lush atmospherics combined with Michael Plaster’s rich voice and deeply intimate lyrics proved to be a balm for the soul.

The album’s personal nature gave voice to many feelings and emotions that I had trouble articulating, particularly when it came to relationships and romance, and nowhere more so than “Landed.” The song practically drips with longing, its gently drifting synthwork — which is especially evocative at two in the morning (trust me on this one) — providing the perfect backdrop for confessional lyrics like “And I had said the few things I’d wanted/That, we all agree, frees our soul/Because no one ever wanted/A memory to chain them/To a word left unfulfilled” or “Did my heart ever brеak the bounds of this stupid body/And soar for what it was meant.”

Is it overwrought and melodramatic? Absolutely. But it’s also deeply sincere and unpretentious.