Afterimage arrives like a memory half-remembered in the dark: tenuous, spectral, and strangely urgent. The solo project of Italian-Belgian artist Piero Delux, Elsehow fashions dreamy art pop that feels less like songs than sonic apparitions. Over sparse, ambient frameworks-few beats, gentle washes of synth, subtle texture-Delux places his silky, intimate voice, exploring the spaces between regret and possibility, loss and longing.

From the opening "Remembrance", we hear his aim: to echo what has passed, to hold onto fragments that refuse to dissolve. His words-“moments half-remembered, blurred by time and feeling”-offer the album’s blueprint. Elsehow is not interested in bold statements or theatrical gestures. Instead, the album unfolds in quiet slivers, the kind that slip in when you’re not looking: "Reflections", "Hemisphere", "In This Century" - each a vignette, a shape in the fog.

Delux wears his influences - Sylvian, Walker, late Talk Talk - lightly. They’re not anchors but spectral companions. He borrows their sense of restraint and space, yet he doesn’t mimic; rather, he translates their emotional vocabulary into his own idiom. His voice floats above the minimalism, sometimes distant, sometimes close enough to feel breath on the skin.

Musically, "Afterimage" is built from absence as much as presence. Sparse piano, light reverb, ambient decay: each tone lingers just long enough to fade. Occasionally the rhythm stirs-barely-but mostly this is music that resists propulsion. It’s contemplative, a mirror turned inward. In "Imagine Being Here", a fragile tension builds, as though an unspoken longing tries to push through the veil. On "Telekinesis" the minimalism tips toward ghostly motion; on "The Endless Dusk", a whispered lament folds into dusk’s quiet surrender.

What makes "Afterimage" compelling is its fidelity to ambiguity. It never fully resolves its sorrows; it rarely declares its certainties. Instead, it lives in the question: Can we feel what fades? Can we speak what memory erases? Delux seems to answer: Yes, if we dissolve into the sound first.

For those seeking music that holds you close while letting you drift - this is a rare and beautiful encounter. Elsehow may not shout, but he remains eloquent - a voice singing through the blur.