Gary Mictian’s “All I Ever Wanted” has just zapped into my ears, and it’s like being handed a perfectly ripe, glowing fruit by a robot who might also be quietly plotting your emotional unraveling. This London producer delivers a single that struts with that tell-tale Hyperpop swagger; a beat so bouncy it could escape a child’s birthday party, a bassline with a satisfying, almost granular crunch – think sonic breadcrumbs leading you somewhere unexpected – and vocals that shimmer and glitch like a cherished memory caught in a failing hard drive.
Mictian is building these sci-fi pop worlds, yes, but “All I Ever Wanted” plants its flag in the very human, very messy terrain of a love that was equal parts lighthouse and maze. The track orbits that draining, cyclical obsession with a past entanglement, where understanding and utter destabilisation did a frantic, confusing dance. You know, like finally mastering a complex bit of ancient origami, only to have it spontaneously combust in your hands. Comfort, then poof. Chaos.
The sheer digital gleam of the production – all those carefully sculpted, exhilarating effects – rubs fascinatingly against the raw, persistent ache of wanting what you know is a beautiful mistake. It’s the sonic equivalent of smiling brightly while a tiny, insistent gremlin tugs at your sleeve, pointing out the approaching abyss. This constant battle between erasure and recollection, this desire for someone who made certainty feel like a foreign language… it’s a peculiar, glittering sadness, this track.
And for all its electronic momentum, the song leaves you hovering. It’s a curious feeling, like staring at one of those optical illusion posters for too long. If what felt like everything was also the grand unravelling, what on earth does the map forward even look like?
