Musician, events curator and all-round Joburger, Tom Saison has just released his latest body of work – an EP titled For Those That Failed At Love.

The EP is a collection of stories about love in many forms, and plenty of it has been inspired by his adventures, escapades, and interactions in this city we call home.

FTTFAL is streaming on all platforms and we sat down with Tom Saison to find out more about the making of the project and the key themes.

What inspired the title “For Those That Failed At Love,” and how does it reflect the themes of the EP?

For those that failed with love is an ode to anyone that has fallen short in an area of their life that required love to be a conduit. Be it a romantic relationship or even their life goals and dreams. Be it their self growth journey and trying to do what’s right from day to day, This EP highlights the motions we tend to go through when we realize we’ve fallen short and hopefully will serve as a balm for anyone dealing with those realities.

Can you share the story behind the first single “Scat Song” and why you chose it as the first introduction of the EP? of the EP?

Scat song is honestly a song I’ve wanted to make for a really long time. Growing up I listened to a lot of J something and Samthing Soweto so when I was producing I thought like it was my opportunity to bring their previous voices in my mind to life. It’s a light song that touches on desire and yearning and I guess it also plants a little seed of hope and since the EP talks about failing at love I thought it best we start the conversation on a lighter note.

How did your personal experiences influence the songwriting and production of this EP?

At the time that we were working on the track listing for this ep I had gotten into an car accident and how it informed my decision in what songs would be making the cut was that I wanted to make sure I chose songs that reflected some of my most authentic thoughts on topics such as anxiety, loss, bouncing back and starting again because these were all things I was dealing with at the time. when you go through something as intense as an accident you tend to get a different view on things in your life and I started looking at how I process failure. This helped me understand what story I was trying to tell because the production work was already done, I was just building up an archive of feelings, sounds and emotions but only at the point where I got to My crossroad did I realize what story I wanted to tell.

What do you hope listeners will take away from the tracks “Nowhere,” “Chasin’,” and “Who Said”?

One of my principles as an artist is that I don’t believe in telling listeners what to take from a song. All I can do is propose ideas or thoughts and suggest scenarios that I have gone through and I have experienced only so that they can determine what they feel. In Nowhere I address anxiety, in Chasin’ I address heartbreak and in Who Said I address the experience of accepting that nothing is promised in life. Those are just my experiences and when someone listens to those songs I hope they will be interpreted in a completely different way because what matters most is that the listeners take the time to listen and have an honest dialogue with themselves so that they can come up with their own ideas and hopefully solutions.

How does “For Those That Failed At Love” differ from your previous releases, and what new elements did you explore in this project?

I think my sound is maturing. I’m learning how to blend and play with different sounds and still make them feel homogenous to Tom Saison. In the grand scheme of things this EP is just the first step and a long road of new music and projects. So I took this as an opportunity to introduce some of my favorite sounds such as UKG, drum and bass, house music and of course at its core R&B/Soul music. The only thing that is truly new is how I’ve gone about blending all of these sounds this time around.

FTTFAL is streaming on all music platforms.