Grace Ives – Mirror
After growing up in Brooklyn, singer and producer Grace Ives bounced around East Coast colleges before landing at SUNY Purchase, where her Roland MC 505 groovebox distinguished her from the plethora of guitarists hoping to follow the path of alumna Mitski. Along the way, Ives accumulated a fanbase who regularly attend her DIY gigs around the city, to which she lugs a blue IKEA bag full of equipment. Ives is now back in New York in a Queens apartment where she wrote her latest single, “Mirror.” This closing track to her upcoming full-length, 2nd, is a clinic in spartan bedroom-pop. Ives’ buttery vocals illustrate a simple realization (“I think I finally got it figured out”) as if a “mirror on the wall” has presented a long-awaited answer. Instrumentally, she takes an economical approach with just a shuffling beat behind alternating synth chords. The song is easygoing and effortless, and Grace’s words summon the fresh kind of intimacy you get when a new friend feels like they’ve been there all your life.
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PALMISTRY –Water
We’ve been treated to another minimal turn of emotions by London-based musician Benjy Keating with his latest offering, “Water.” On March 29 the Mixpak Records artist, who goes by the name Palmistry, released a simple but expressive single that previews what we can expect from his Afterlife album, due out in May.
The tone carries influences from pop-rap and tropical house, with distant flourishes that remind you of steel drums from an earlier time.
On “Water” we have what sounds like drowsy, autotune-textured vocals front and center, with layered elements in the background constantly reaching deep into memory.
It’s a number produced by SOPHIE, she, too, of the liquid realm — see, her subdued inner orchestra of a track “Is It Cold In The Water?”
Keating’s take on the fluid state is like waking up from a dream that co-mingles several different storylines from different eras of your past. But you’re here now. Those days are over. It’s bittersweet. You’re moving forward. And the residual feeling is one of warmth.
It’s possible Keating is remembering the success of one of his tracks that actually tackled that very subject, “Memory Taffeta.” Palmistry has been busy working with Yung Lean as well as hands-on with Vietnamese-Chinese artist Triad God. So he could’ve been replaying those experiences for himself, too, while coming up with the essence of “Water.”
The new album, Afterlife, created in turns in Athens and Brooklyn, will be the follow-up to his debut Pagan.
Read the rest of this article at Flaunt
Wallows – Are You Bored Yet? (feat. Clairo)
We’ve all been there. Worried glances towards your significant other in the passenger seat, trying to divine fortunes from furrowed brows and hesitations. That sinking feeling that maybe this isn’t working so well anymore. But maybe it could again in the morning.
Wallows’ single “Are You Bored Yet?” is the fourth track from their debut album Nothing Happens, out everywhere today, March 22, via Atlantic Records. The song is just one of many shimmering, synth-infused explorations into the coming-of-age intricacies of young adult life—the loss of innocence, nostalgia, anxiety.
“The whole record is sort of a big collage of thoughts from youth,” says Dylan Minnette, who handles vocals, keyboard and guitar for the band. “‘Are You Bored Yet?’ plays into that really nicely because it’s all about wondering if the other person is bored in the relationship—because you’re afraid that you are, too.”
The track also features Clairo, a collaboration that came about in a series of lucky happenstances beginning with an introduction from Gus Dapperton. “He left us a little note in the green room about who he is, this really nice thing,” Cole Preston (drums, backup vocals) recalls of a show they played in Atlanta. “We ended up meeting up with him IRL, so later on in the tour, he introduced us to Matt Keller, who’s a music video director. He ended up working on a Clairo vid, and ended up introducing us to Clairo. So we would not have met Clairo if it weren’t for Gus Dapperton.”
“Are You Bored Yet?” explores a dreamier pop territory when compared to the band’s usual alt-rock stomping grounds. Chiming piano and delicate guitar riffs, layered with Clairo’s voice, weave a gossamer atmosphere that provides an infectiously deceptive cover for the song’s underlining worry: fear and dishonesty.
One thing Wallows won’t have to worry about? Speaking the truth to one another. “We’re all very comfortable with our honesty. It’s very healthy,” Braeden Lemasters (vocals, guitar, bass) explains. “We keep each other in check.”
Read the rest of this article at Paste Magazine
SG Lewis – Throwaway
SG Lewis links with Clairo on new single ‘Throwaway’.
The producer has worked with the vocalist once more, following the breakout success of last summer’s stunning cut ‘Better’.
New single ‘Throwaway’ emerged from sessions in Los Angeles, and it’s the final preview of SG Lewis’ incoming album ‘Dusk, Dark, Dawn’.
All billowing electronics and those subtle vocals, it dives into the depths before soaring back up. SG Lewis comments:
“Clairo is one of my favourite artists to work with, and a good friend of mine. ‘Throwaway’ was written in LA one evening – we were both super tired and had some shit going on in our respective personal lives. We sat and talked for ages, and after that ‘Throwaway’ flowed out in no time at all. Clairo is such a special artist and an incredible songwriter, and I’m super proud of this song.”
Read the rest of this article at Clash
Lala Lala – “Destroyer”
While grieving the death of a friend, recovering from a home invasion, and starting to become sober, the Chicago singer-songwriter Lillie West was also writing her sophomore album, The Lamb, with her rock band Lala Lala. Its lead single, “Destroyer” plunges into West’s emotional chaos, dealing with the misleading perception that gut feelings will always lead one to an ideal resolution.
“Destroyer” begins with a grumbling lo-fi guitar, its brooding emphasized with jabs from a toy piano that echo in the background. West’s voice begins low and weighed down; the lyrics evoke paranoia and confusion as they offer images of violence and black holes. From first verse, West wants to prohibit herself from making more mistakes. “If I’m using my hands/Can you cut them off?” she sings. During the chorus, West’s throaty voice climbs higher and higher, keeping pace with a dizzying guitar melody like a frenzied cuckoo clock. “You are the reason my heart broke behind my back,” she shouts, before a sense of calm descends and guitar reverb fades out the song. In that way, Lala Lala’s music is like watching an open wound being stitched up—jarring and healing.
Read the rest of this article at Pitchfork
