Toby Whyle

The world comes to a halt, and everything stands still. On Toby Whyle’s debut single “No One Moves” he approaches a phenomenon artists are often somewhat hesitant to address: writer’s block. He ponders the numbing feeling of helplessness when ideas just wouldn’t come to him for weeks. The only way out of his dilemma was to explore the nature of inspiration itself. What does it mean to be inspired? To have ideas – or to lack them?

Then suddenly, as the sky swiftly clears up, inspiration begins to flow. Something happens, something so hard to put into words yet so easy to be entranced by. When in a brief moment of equilibrium, worries and euphoria seem to be perfectly balanced. You can almost feel the air crackling and sizzling with energy. An impulse that sets everything in motion – and it flows.

https://www.tobywhyle.com/

No One Moves

"Another vacant glance, in another half-hearted dance." Toby Whyle's second single "Quiet the Silence" is about the changing relationship between two people. He describes the feeling when shared euphoria unexpectedly starts fading, because you are moving in different directions, taking different paths — drifting apart from each other.

Waking up to the reality of not being on the same page anymore leads to some loaded questions: What happened? How did we end up here? “I was convinced that things would turn out differently in the end,” Toby admits, wondering how the many untroubled, loud and vivid moments could become so rare, quiet and somber. How could the crushing clouds of lethargy come in unnoticed, leaving everything drenched in grey? When did conversations dwindle into a mere formality, stringing together empty phrases, just to quiet the uncomfortable silence?

The song embodies this sad emotional state with a bittersweet melody — carried by the steady rhythm of the drums, like a pounding heartbeat, and Toby's voice that gently envelops the melancholic sentiment.

Quiet the Silence

One step forward, two steps back? There are some mistakes that we just don’t seem to want to learn from—obstacles we keep putting in our own way. Since it can often feel quite pleasant to just wallow in self-pity, we tend to chalk things up to fate—even though they’re actually in our own hands and no one else can fix things for us.

With his new single, “Pity”, Toby Whyle encourages us to look forward again, to get up and try once more, and to overcome the bruised ego constantly telling us “to give it a rest. Your attempts are in vain.” The chorus of the song is a wake-up call to our inner selves: “I’ll steer through this on my own. Gotta sort it out for myself, you know?” With stubborn persistence, the beat steadily pushes forward and the tune’s optimistic melody induces an awakening.

Pity

How It Feels

Writing songs has always been quite natural and ever-present in Toby Whyle’s life. And he’s written plenty of them over the last decade. However, what’s new is the realisation that songwriting is one of his few means to slow down the bright and fast-paced world surrounding us. Driven by the urge to create and develop something new, he started to write again. And suddenly, this feeling of being able to pause time came out more intense and immediate than ever.

In this way, the singer, songwriter, and guitarist manages to stand back from the constant rush, carving out space to move freely at his own pace. “​Each song is an empty room, and I can decide for myself how I’m going to furnish it. It might get rather chaotic with stuff piled up to the ceiling, then again there’s almost nothing in it​”, he describes his approach to songwriting. For him, creating melodies, crafting music and lyrics is not just a means of reflecting on situations he finds himself in but also a tool of handling them. Toby’s music strives to affect and inspire people in all the different phases in life, as his songs are also a result of the diverse situations he’s gone through.

Aesthetics and craftsmanship play a crucial role in Toby Whyle’s creative process, from crafting songs, recording and producing them, and building and maintaining a particular visual language. He aims to create high-quality and exceptional music that enthuses and delights people, which sparks energy and conveys a certain feeling.