MANTRIX STORM - U, de stad

On Rotation: Mantrix Storm "U, de stad"

Mantrix Storm's "U, de stad" came out on 14 February 2025, A lovely bittersweet requiem for Utrecht in shining guitar arpeggios, poetic lyrics, and assertive AI-processed rhythm. It's a song, naturally, but an equal share love letter to the town as well - a reflective consideration of friendship, change, and time.

Less than an instant heard, "U, de stad" has you in its breathing spaces. The rasping-throated, husky–machine-backed yet raw with emotion, conveys to you an extremely personal anecdote. Verse is a thing of whispered asides, something commented upon having wafted by the pleasant backstreets of Utrecht. There's always this drum pattern that permeates the song, so it's an unstoppable drum pattern, and there are arpeggiated guitar riffs which make it reminiscent in the tradition of Dutch pop-rock ancestors like Acda en De Munnik, De Dijk, and Van Dik Hout.

As the song lengthens, so does the production, textured guitar and atmospheric richness adding emotional heft. Both human playing and AI-driven sound design build a new sonic landscape—new and old at once. Mantrix Storm is an innovative composer and producer who employs AI technology as muse, not gimmick or aside, to work with. The outcome is a song that's warmly human and yet fearlessly new.

With "U, de stad," Mantrix Storm illustrates that music is capable of being an ode to the future and beyond imagination. Not only is the song hindered by limiting him to contemporary music, but it shows his ability of reinventing personal past into something that anyone can identify with. Although Utrecht's cityscape will always be changed, the song is one of the permanent testimonies to the soul and heart of the city.