LOST IN TRANSLATION: How Daithí’s ‘Valentine’ Found Love in Japanese Record Bars

Tokyo at night. Neon signs hum like electric lullabies, and somewhere down a side street, behind a barely marked door, there’s a bartender who knows more about your taste in music than you do.

No setlists. No requests. Just a turntable, a vast wall of vinyl, and a drink you didn’t order but somehow needed. This is where Daithí found Valentine. Or maybe where Valentine found him.

Fresh from scoring films and crafting the kind of collaborations that get IFTA nominations, Daithí has returned with a single that sounds like it time-traveled straight out of a Milanese nightclub circa 1986 and landed flawlessly in 2025. This is not a nostalgia act. This is Italo Disco with an existential crisis.

Valentine is what happens when you spend your nights in the kind of bars where music isn’t just background noise -- it’s gospel.

This track doesn’t hit you like a love song. It sneaks up on you. The melody floats in like a half-remembered dream, the kind you wake up chasing but can never fully grasp. It doesn't surprise me one bit that in his 2 year hiatus from making solo records, Daithi's been making film scores.Valentine isn’t about telling a story. It’s about making you feel like you’re inside one.

THE ART OF INTENTIONAL LISTENING

“In these tiny, dimly lit spaces, bartenders double as curators,” Daithí explains, describing Japan’s listening bars. “From huge shelves of vinyl, they’d carefully select a record, hold it up as if unveiling a treasure, and place it on the turntable for the six or seven patrons wedged into the room.”

That sense of reverence is all over Valentine. Every beat, every synth swell, every carefully placed splice feels chosen, not just made. There’s patience in the production -- an understanding that space is just as important as sound.

The foundation is classic Italo Disco: that four-on-the-floor heartbeat, the shimmering arpeggios, the sense that you should probably be wearing sunglasses indoors while listening to it. But it never leans too far into pastiche. Instead, it plays with tension; melding the excess of the ‘80s with the restraint of a modern producer who knows exactly when to pull back.

VINTAGE EXCESS, MODERN PRECISION

And the cool thing is, at a glance it's quite a simple track. (I mean, I couldn't have made it). But technically, Valentine is a triumph of layering. The synths strut in with the confidence of a Bladerunner John Hughes soundtrack, but there’s a slick, calculated minimalism that keeps it from feeling like a throwback. The percussion is crisp, giving the track a propulsive energy without overwhelming the mix.

The sparse vocals don't so much tell a story as suggest one, leaving space for the listener to fill in their own story It's the musical equivalent of a perfectly ambiguous text message -- you can read into it whatever you need to. (And I think she's into me).

And speaking of that voice; distant, like a transmission from a lost radio station broadcasting from the back of your brain. And again, simple. Just repeated lines but it's very alluring. It’s not guiding you; it’s inviting you in, letting you find your own meaning in the space between the notes. I really fuck with this actually.

A Track That Defines the Album

Valentine doesn’t just nod to Italo Disco—it revs the engine, throws it into overdrive, and speeds off toward some hazy, synth-drenched horizon.

The track moves with the confidence of a late-night cityscape, where every neon reflection feels like a secret invitation. (See also: The Drive soundtrack if it actually knew how to have fun.) I'm a big fan of Daithi's old stuff. And seeing how this track feel's, It's a safe bet that the album planned for later this year will be played non stop.

Valentine was a great present this febuarary. It's a sharp reminder that music isn’t meant to be consumed like fast food. It’s meant to be chased, savored, obsessed over. The algorithm might guess your taste, but it’ll never be a bartender in a Tokyo bar, holding up a record like it’s the Holy Grail, about to change your whole night, maybe your whole life, with the drop of a needle.