alt-pop – Audiofemme

Taiwainese R&B Artist 9m88 Releases Cathartic Jazz-Influenced Sophomore LP 9m88 Radio

One of the many miracles of music – good music – is its ability to transcend cultures, space, time and connect people from all walks of life. On her sophomore record, 9m88 (Joanne Tang) does just this. 9m88 (pronounced “Jo-m-baba”) is a Taiwanese artist who translates her love for jazz and R&B into her own iteration of the genre. Mixing Mandarin with English and traditional jazz with alternative R&B production, 9m88 Radio is kaleidoscope of sound, guided by Tang’s soft but confident vocals.

Though Tang has been singing her entire life, she admits that songwriting – especially in English – is fairly new to her. After completing fashion school in Taiwan and moving to New York City to be closer to the industry, Tang realized she still felt called to pursue her love for singing and music. She was accepted to the New School as a jazz vocalist, and this is where her journey as a songwriter and artist began. “That was a really condensed moment of me trying to write some music, do some collaboration with people,” says Tang. “For me, songwriting is still really new. I’m still working on it, especially in English.”

Influenced by icons like Erykah Badu, Stevie Wonder and Ella Fitzgerald, Tang possesses a melodic sensibility that breaks through regardless of the language. In “Sleepwalking,” Tang paints a sultry and light-hearted depiction of infatuation with bouncy vocals that feel akin to Ariana Grande’s “R.E.M.” In the chorus, she sings, “I am too hysterical/Got nowhere to go/Am I sleepwalking?” Her unexpected phrasing and blunt lyricism are a refreshing take on the archetypical pop R&B track.

While the record is sprinkled with whimsy and romance in songs like “A Merry Feeling,” Tang welcomes the listener into the darker, more intimate parts of her psyche as well. “With this album, I started to be more reflective,” Tang explains. “Last year, I went through some heartbreaks and personal stuff… I thought maybe I should just document the sad feeling through writing songs and make it a healing session for myself.”

<a href="https://9m88baba.bandcamp.com/album/9m88-radio">9m88 Radio by 9m88</a>

“Star” beautifully describes the pain of heartache while leaving room for hope and humor. In her glassy croon, Tang sings, “I cannot feel myself/And I just cry a lot/Me being pessimistic is cute as fuck” – allowing herself to lament a loss while loving herself at the same time. In the same, the lead track and single, “Watchu Gonna…?” finds solace in packing up and moving on. “In Mandarin, I wrote a lot of verses about tidying dishes, mopping floors… to show my statement of wanting to get rid of this messy stuff,” says Tang. The video shows Tang in an empty room, packing up the last of her ex-lover’s clothes, surrounded by her friends. “By dancing together, it feels like we are accompanying each other to get through something,” Tang says.

As a whole, 9m88 Radio takes the listener through all the stages of heartbreak – anger, euphoria, sadness, regret and release. Tang’s portrait of love lost is a story we can all relate to, regardless of our native tongue.

Follow 9m88 on Instagram for ongoing updates.

INTERVIEW: Introducing Julia Wolf

Perusing through Julia Wolf’s Instagram, the combination of quirky photoshopped selfies, documentary style videos shot with her younger sister, and peeks into her songwriting process made her feel instantly familiar to me – like someone I may have grown up with, or met at the classical music festivals I attended as a kid. As it turns out, we haven’t crossed paths in this lifetime, but in conversation her vulnerability and openness was magnetic. A classically trained pianist, vocalist, and brilliant top liner – WOLF’s music embodies old soul dynamic energy with a modern flare and 808s. The stage name WOLF was actually inspired by her little sister’s childhood protective imaginary friend. “Every night she’d say, ‘Good night, Wolf’ to her imaginary pet. It kind of just stuck with us through the years,” she remembers. “She still says it now, just out of habit.” It was a natural choice for Julia’s stage name, which she says she “didn’t want to be super contemporary – I wanted something that was going to really stand out.”

Wolf began releasing songs last year, beginning with “Captions,” “Immortale,” and “Chlorine,” introducing her honey silk vocal tone and confessional, stream-of-consciousness lyrical style: “The nostalgia trips me up/I miss being small like the first time/Driving with no parents in the car/Need to stop quitting before I start/Got my flip flops cutting me up while I walk.” The cadence of her flow and succinct melodies expressed a duality of emotional depth and vulnerability with a pinch of defiance and empowerment. A love child from a cross-genre mixtape your first crush made for you in middle school, wrapped in aged holiday paper, slipped through the space between the window and the seat on the after school bus.

Since the age of seven, Julia Wolf found refuge playing classical music on a white baby grand piano that was gifted as surprise from her father to nurture and develop her musical talents. A rigid dichotomy between social introversion and a passion for performance eventually led to routine participation at her school’s talent shows. “As a teenager I was extremely shy, and I just couldn’t talk to people. It didn’t make any sense why I was always performing, but it was the one thing that I just loved to do,” she says. “Eventually my teacher said, if you want to perform in the senior showcase talent show, it has to be an original song. I was mortified. My first song kind of wrote itself. It was about my best friend at the time. I was a senior, and she was a junior. I was going to be leaving for college and it was about always finding time for each other no matter what. Although I couldn’t connect with most people face to face, it was surprisingly easy for me to express myself through songwriting, almost an unhealthy justification for being so quiet.” Though that song is unreleased, Wolf dissects these indelible personality traits on recent single “Pillow”: “I will never act like something I’m not/Don’t blame my shyness/I just don’t wanna talk/But I think a lot/People can interpret it however they want.”

Though her songs seem effortless and natural, it took a long time for Wolf to bring them to life. She studied at the SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Music, focusing on music composition and taking a gap year to study classical under Darren Solomon, who encouraged Julia to consider a future as a concert pianist. She eventually returned to her left-field indie pop songs, independently producing demos out of necessity, but they fell just short of what she longed to achieve with them. “Throughout college and then the years following that, I was constantly hitting up different producers because my knowledge only took me to a certain level,” she says. “It still wasn’t matching what was in my head. Trying to find people to work with was so unsuccessful. It became really heartbreaking because I would send demos to be mixed and I would get mixes back that were literally unrecognizable. I even cried, and I’m not a crier.”

This disappointment led to her father suggesting a return to his hometown in Italy and starting a family run pizza business. Both of Wolf’s parents are native Italians – you can hear Wolf’s heritage in bilingual single “Immortale” – and felt that a fresh start as an American artist in Italy would provide a new beginning for Julia and be a good move for the family overall. At first, Wolf didn’t see it that way. “I just was so devastated. I thought my music career wasn’t going to work out for me based solely on the fact that I just couldn’t find people to help bring to life the vision,” she says.

A serendipitous internet connection with Jackson Foote (of NYC-based electro-pop duo Loote) changed everything. Foote stumbled upon a soundbite from a live performance posted on WOLF’s Instagram story and casually asked if he could take a stab at flushing out production for the track. “I had been searching for collaborative artists for years before meeting Jackson and it was one dead end after the next. I never realized finding someone on the same wavelength as me, who understood the sound I wanted, would be so completely impossible,” Wolf says. “But when Jackson and I started working together there were two things I immediately knew: one was how rare our musical alignment was, and two that I wanted to continue working with him for as long as our creativity would let us.” This organic partnership would eventually birth the first batch of tracks that matched her true sonic vision. Her cross-genre, R&B-tinged pop has since gone viral on Spotify.

Wolf’s distinctive music style might come as a surprise to some; she says she’s often pigeonholed as the singer-songwriter type at a glance. “When people look at me… they’re always surprised when I say, like, yeah, I listen to rap or, you know, this is what my music sounds like,” she says. “I feel like I have definitely been boxed in, at least for like the beginning half of my career. And that’s why I never put music out, because it wasn’t exactly what I was envisioning to represent myself.”

By teaching herself Photoshop, Wolf’s surrealist artwork (heavily inspired by the album art of Tyler the Creator) completes her sonic world. Her imagery carves out a unique visual space for the project, and separates Wolf from the typical self-promoting artists taking selfies at coffee shops in Silver Lake. She creates whimsical collages, layering skeleton fingers over a fleshed out hand holding a vintage mirror, shooting laser beams or dribbling crystalized tear drops from her deep set eyes.

The lyrics always come first for Wolf as the main focal point followed by the melody. She gets most of her inspiration from Soundcloud, where she spends time discovering up-and-coming rappers. She’s also heavily influenced by the lyricism and genius of Frank Ocean: “It’s just really the attention to detail that I love so much about him and the way he could say so much with so little. I think that’s one of the hardest things to do, is to just simplify how you’re feeling,” she says. She says SZA is another big influence for the same reason, adding, “I’ve always gravitated towards rap. I don’t know if it’s the beat that’s behind it or the change up in flow and being able to keep a song so interesting without melody. Blows my mind.” You can hear those influences strongly on her latest single, “Play Dead,” which dissects the “evil” behavior she’s guilty of acting out in a doomed relationship. But she’s also inspired by pop punk bands like The Front Bottoms. “I was always the first in the mosh pit, and really let loose,” she says. “Their live shows are just so much fun, and it’s also inspiring to see people storm the stage and just feel like they can completely be themselves.”

Wolf has been riding out the pandemic in NYC, and while the isolation is not unusual for a writer who values her solitude, she says, the biggest difference between her normal hermetic routine and quarantine is that the latter “feels way more forced – and that has definitely challenged the creative process.” Of course, the location itself has a silver lining. “Being in NYC in general has taught me that artists can find inspiration in all types of circumstances; there’s a fundamental need to create when you feel you have something to say,” Wolf points out. “The state of the world right now is a heavy mixture of chaos, unjustness, sadness… but watching people create change is 100% motivating and highlights the beauty that comes from speaking your truth.”

For now, her plan is to drop a few more singles before turning her gaze to a full-length release. “I’m getting a lot closer to releasing an album but want to make sure the timing is right,” she says. “It’s a body of work I’m proud of and while I’m tempted to just release it, like most things in life, rushing always backfires.”

Follow WOLF on Facebook for ongoing updates.

The Foxies Weave Punk, Pop and Disco Into the Fabric of Nashville’s Music Scene

While Nashville stands as the capital of country music, there are countless artists who prove it’s sacred ground for all genres. The Foxies are one example, with their self-described “goth disco” and “glitter punk” infusion establishing them as a noteworthy player in Nashville’s underground music scene.

Frontwoman Julia Bullock rose to fame with her audition on season two of the U.S. version of The X Factor in 2012. She formed the Nashville-based band The Foxies in 2014 after joining forces with guitarist Jake Ohlbaum, Rob Bodley on drums and former bassist Kyle Talbot. The trio pulls from a dynamic blend of alt-rock, funk-pop and disco to create infectious melodies and tongue-in-cheek lyrics that demonstrate how Nashville’s artistry expands far beyond the horizon of country music. As Bullock boasts a look that draws to mind Paramore’s Hayley Williams, matched with a voice like that of Gwen Stefani, the group has crafted a sound with a lighter, more playful attitude.

The trio is set to release a new six-song EP, Growing Up is Dead, on May 29th. Bullock declares herself as a proud “Anti Socialite” on the EP’s opening track, inviting her friends to the party in her head while “sipping on Capri Sun” to get a hit of ’90s nostalgia. Meanwhile, “Call Me When Your Phone Dies,” described as an “ode to the fuck boys,” sticks it to a disappointing lover before the screaming “Neon Thoughts” dishes out a healthy dose of electronic disco. The projects ends on a groove with “Deep Sea Diver,” Bullock’s mystifying vocals layered over a pop-rock beat.

The Foxies have released a pair of EPs, 2016’s Oblivion and Battery in 2019, along with singles like the thumping, reggae-like “Be Afraid Boy” that appeared in an episode of the CW’s 2018 reboot of Charmed. They’ve also graced a range of stages from LGBTQ-friendly The Lipstick Lounge in East Nashville to Bonnaroo Festival and South by Southwest. The intoxicating air of The Foxies’ dreamy synth pop melodies sound like they were plucked out of L.A. and transported to Music City. Mixing this ethereal sound with a rock edge and a punk attitude, The Foxies breathe new life into Nashville’s underrated pop scene. They support this diverse mix with equally vibrant imagery of neon colors and quirky music videos reminiscent of the ’80s, but with a modern twist.

Comparing rock music to that of a slumbering bear, Bullock declares that The Foxies hope to awaken the beast with their new project – and we have no doubt they’re up to the task.

Follow The Foxies on Facebook for ongoing updates.

PLAYING NASHVILLE: Sinclair Premieres “Drop Dead Knockout” Video

Sinclair reaches through the screen with confidence and positive energy in the music video for her song, “Drop Dead Knockout,” premiering exclusively with Audiofemme.

Co-written by Sinclair, Nikolai Potthoff and Julia Hugel in 2018 in Berlin, Germany, the unapologetic bop embraces themes of individuality and self-acceptance. The free-spirited video features LA-based choreographer and actress Courtni Poe dancing her way through the streets of Berlin, past graffiti and into the subway station, with her effervescent moves, bright energy and spirit reflecting the song’s nature. Sinclair and her wife Natalie Rose spent a couple of months living in Berlin and wanted the playful video to capture its unique, eclectic vibe. “The thing that I’ve connected to is that there is this overall sense of self-expression and individuality. There is a sense of crazy freedom,” she says of the city. “I feel so at home there.”

Sonically, the track intertwines Sinclair’s vast-ranging influences, from the bold hip-hop of Timbaland to Sade’s blend of pop, jazz and soul, while the singer herself plays that infectious guitar loop. Filled with attitude, the track finds Sinclair stepping into a place of self-confidence, singing lines like “all the girls/try for me/ I’m as good as they want me to be” with casual bravado.

“We’re allowed to say that; we’re allowed to have that confidence,” she says. “‘Drop Dead Knockout’ is really about me coming to this place in my individuality and being able to wear what I want to wear and self-express the way that I want to. I think knockout, it’s that power, it’s like that guttural confidence. It’s feeling in your gut you can do anything and take on any shit you got going on in your life and dreaming big.”

Though the video solidifies her singular vision, the singer admits that seeking individuality has been a lifelong quest. Raised in upstate New York in the small town of Madrid, Sinclair is sixth in a line of nine siblings, her father an Evangelical pastor and mother a teacher who homeschooled all nine children. A Beatles fan at the age of four and learning to play piano a year later, Sinclair discovered her musical passion at age 12 when her father began teaching her how to play classical guitar, quickly becoming “obsessed” with the instrument.

It was during this time that she began writing songs and accepting her sexuality, knowing her whole life that she was attracted to women. But growing up in a religious household where the family’s belief system was tied to the church stifled her ability to share her feelings with those closest to her. “It was really hard for me in that period to write honest songs. I was writing in code,” she heartily laughs. “I was trying to write songs that sometimes were reflecting that, but if I wrote those songs, they had to be enough in code that nobody would ask questions that would get to the bottom line.”

Sinclair came out to her family when she was 20, the news creating friction between them, as they wouldn’t accept her. “When I came out, it was really hard because I felt really betrayed in the sense that they projected on to my character new things,” she reflects. “I think what was heartbreaking was that there was a sense that I was a totally different person in my character overall. Even though the truth was there now, there was still this overarching sense of loneliness, because nobody was really trusting me and knowing my character at that point.”

She left home for Nashville in 2011, where she met and fell in love with Natalie. The couple wed at an all-boys school in Nashville in 2014. Rather than viewing the lack of acceptance from her family through the eyes of bitterness, the singer says it’s part of the journey to finding pure happiness and peace, knowing she found the person who brings meaning to her life. “I have this sense of excitement over the freedom that I get to experience now every day and it’s never lost on me,” she observes, adding that she has recently reconnected with her family. “I understand more than a lot of people how simple life is and I’m lucky, and it’s really because of all that shit. It’s a blessing and a curse.”

With a sound that blends hip-hop and flamenco music, along with her colorful style that’s splashed across her Instagram, she seems to embody individuality; each element is a piece of the journey to Sinclair’s discovery of her creative identity. But she admits that pressure to conform to music industry standards has made it difficult over the years to find artistic independence – she notes that she didn’t start dressing the way she wanted to until two years into her relationship with Natalie. She says her “awakening confidence” allowed more of her true self to click into place. “I just wish for everybody that wherever they’re at now, they’re able to find happiness and confidence in their own skin,” she says.

She pinpoints one relatively recent epiphany: a visit she and Natalie took to the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, Spain in 2018. While analyzing his work, she saw a progression in which he began his career following his contemporaries, to eventually abandoning classic technique and creating his revolutionary style. As she continues down her own distinct path, Sinclair may find herself voyaging through an artistic evolution of equal lengths. “He was good until his 40s, and then he was good and different, and then he was a noteworthy artist. And I just was like ‘that’s what being an artist is about,’” she proclaims. “I think that I’ll always be learning that.”

“Drop Dead Knockout” is available now. Sinclair is currently on tour with Kevin Griffin of Better Than Ezra through Nov. 20.

PLAYING CINCY: Pop Empire Talk “Novena,” Finding Their Sound & Incense

Cincinnati trio Pop Empire recently dropped their nine-track album, Novena. The indie-rock outfit will head out on a supporting tour this month.

Novena marks the 10-year-old group’s first full-length album since 2014’s Future Blues and the first album with the group’s current lineup – founding member Henry Wilson, guitarist Katrina Eresman, and drummer Jake Langknecht.

Teased with singles “Sister Chaos,” “Black Wine,” and “For Maggie,” the record navigates glittery soundscapes of psychedelic and progressive rock, tied together by what the band labels as a feeling of “familiarity.”

Here, Henry, Katrina, and Jake talk about their recording process and learning to communicate as a band, which ultimately led to Pop Empire finding its unique sonic home in Novena. The bandmates also discuss the virtue of patience, studio magic, and the helpful scents of Nicki Minaj incense.

Stream Novena and check out their upcoming tour dates below.

AF: Congrats on your new album! Can you tell me about some of the underlying themes?

H: The songs came from each of us throughout different periods of time. Really what you hear on this album, is just the three of us playing in a room together and something, that the three of us have developed over a couple years, that is its own distinct sound. It’s certainly got plenty of familiar influences. I think there’s a lot of themes in the album that tie the songs together.

J: The recording of the album took place over a good couple of months. It was just the three of us, we didn’t really have anybody else’s time we were occupying and we weren’t spending a bunch of money at a studio. We were in a familiar space and we could really take our time to run takes of the songs, as many times as we needed to. Some of them hadn’t really been written or arranged, to a large degree, yet. As different as the songs might seem at first listen, from song to song, I think to all of us there is definitely a feeling of cohesion between them. We hammered them out in the same process and the same place with a lot of patience.

AF: What can you tell me about the significance of the title, Novena?

H: I would get in trouble if I didn’t give credit to my mother for actually coming up with the name, she suggested it. We had tried a bunch of titles—the album had come together long before the title was given. The number nine is significant—there’s nine songs on the album. The number nine is related to the word Novena, which means a nine-fold in Latin. It refers to an ancient form of prayer that was also adopted into Catholicism, which is a nine-day prayer in a traditional form. The reason for the number nine sounds, like, way more Hocus-Pocus than I really am [laughing].

AF: This is Pop Empire’s first album since 2014 and with the new band members. How does Novena differ from Future Blues?

K: The way that I feel all the songs are tied together in one piece is that we were trying to write them before we learned how to communicate as a band and as friends. Personally, I was communicating through the songs. I joined this band on a tour last minute so I came in and literally learned the guitar parts to play so it was very impersonal to me and I did that for a long time. I think that there was a period of time when we were trying to work on these songs and I was sort of, like, trying to play in that style still, like as the old guitarist, and fill those shoes. And then there was some point where I connected more. I think in general, I’m a little less traditionally skilled—a little bit more dirty, dissonant, and noisy as a guitarist. So now that I could see it in my own way I think that influenced the style, ‘cause all the songs existed in some form, and some of them for a really long time.

AF: What is each of your favorite song on the album?

K: I would say I’m surprised by how much I ended up liking “Riding The Crest” ‘cause it was very frustrating for a long time. I didn’t know what to do with it. And then it became something real different than what it was.

H: This is the song that, for Pop Empire nerds out there, was technically released as a bonus track on a Bandcamp download. Well, there was a song with the same name. It’s pretty vastly different. There was definitely a direct evolution from the beginning of the song into what it is now.

K: Now, it’s totally made me tear up before. It’s a really nice, emotive song.

AF: You’re also going on tour this month. Any new places for you?

H: I think there will be some new in-between spots. Even though Cincinnati is so close to so many towns, there are still lot of places we haven’t gone to as a band.

AF: Where do you draw inspiration from?

J: There’s a lot. Everything that I listen to nine months prior probably influenced this album. But the songs didn’t really come from any particular place except from me. It was natural enough with my style and the way I played, and our style, driving the album. We’ve been a band—and I’ve been playing with Henry for five years or more and I’ve known Katy now for two years—so we’ve established our own sound. I feel like the album itself had a sound before we even touched it.

K: Your style is like dark blocks. Dark-colored shapes and blocks–that’s how I picture your style, visually. That’s where you got your influence [laughing].

J: [Laughing] Cool.

K: Yeah, I don’t know for me either. I think I ended up thinking in the context of Drone-y music, like really heavy playing. I don’t like consciously point to people that I am inspired by, but I do find myself finding influence from bands.

H: For me, it’s going to be a lot of old stuff. A lot of 20’s and 30’s. While we were making this album we weren’t even listening to any of the same stuff. We just knew what sound the songs had once we heard it. When they’re all played together, to me, the songs all have to do with evoking a very calming and reassuring presence that feels very familiar, from like before you were born. If that kind of presence could be found, that’s what all of these songs were trying to go for.

AF: So maybe, stylistically, if there weren’t too many outside influences, this album was just you hitting your collective stride?

K: I think it could be. I’ve definitely read interviews where people will be like, ‘Oh, we just went in the studio and it was just there,’ and that’s kind of messed with my head because I have to try and would get frustrated if something didn’t come immediately. So I don’t like to say that, but on the other hand it is kind of what happened with this album. We were just working really hard all winter, over and over and over, and just kind of somehow ended up coming together. It showed that there is like a magic that can happen when we connect as musicians, it just took a while.

H: I think that’s a really good point. To anybody that wants to learn something, this absolutely is something that requires grit and perseverance. It was really tough, there were plenty of times where it could have felt easier to give up on the project, but we really stuck through it. The album only happened because of that.

AF: Exactly. What are some key takeaways you learned from recording this album?

J: We really came together as these three people. But also, for me, I never had the opportunity to really like take time in recording and be really patient with my parts. Short of deriving expectations—how do you get to where you have a song that is presentable as a final iteration? Both through the tools you need to use and also the working process.

H: Also, we used lots of incense to conjure the moments we were trying to create.

K: We had a Nicki Minaj incense.

H: And Ariana Grande.

AF: What do those smell like?

J: Who can say [laughing]?

K: Also, a little Charcuterie tray is very nice.

H: Yes, meats and cheeses and a fridge full of sparkling water.

POP EMPIRE TOUR DATES

9/4 – Fort Wayne, IN @ The Brass Rail
9/5 – Chicago, IL @ The Owl
9/7 – Minneapolis, MN @ Palmer’s Bar
9/9 – Nashville, TN @ The East Room
9/19 – Pittsburgh, PA @ The Mr. Roboto Project
9/20 – Philadelphia, PA @ House Show – RSVP for address
9/21 – Brooklyn, NY @ Knitting Factory
9/23 – Saratoga Springs, NY @ Desperate Annie’s

TRACK PREMIERE: Kid Runner, “Don’t Change Me”

“I gotta lotta big dreams and I wanna see where they go”

Columbus-based alt-pop five-piece, Kid Runner, has been going strong since their 2013 debut EP came out to commercial and critical success. Today they’ve released their brand new single, “Don’t Change Me”, teasing out their forthcoming LP, Body Language, due 8/12. The track boasts whimsical vocals that harken back to 90s bubblegum pop, underpinned by what sounds like a distorted old Wurlitzer-style tinkering electric piano, adding a perfect element of charm and quirk. Toward the end of the track we get a burst of refreshing female vocal harmonies coming in at the middle of the bridge, lending weight to the composition as a whole, and propelling it forward. Take a first listen to this sparkling pop gem right here, and keep your eyes out for what’s to come from the band’s debut LP on 8/12.

TRACK PREMIERE: RYAL “Wish”

RYAL is Jacque Ryal, an alt-pop artist from San Diego, CA who moved to New York when she was 18. Although her earlier work was considerably darker and drew comparisons to groups such as Portishead, RYAL has challenged herself to write songs that were both optimistic and timeless on her upcoming release.

Though her new music aspires to be happier, I sense the same longing in the song “Wish” as I feel everyday from November to April: What happened to summer? Why did summer have to go away? It helps that the track invokes a trip to the beach; along with producer Aaron Nevezie, she’s created a bouncy, but focused beat with splashes of tropical guitar and synths that will have you missing the good days when the sun didn’t set before 6pm: “We had a good love/ Not just a summer fling…I miss you bad when the sun falls on to its knees.” Her words capture the bittersweetness of a fleeting romance, while the music reflects the brightness and happiness she experienced before she knew it was gone.

The RYAL EP will be available on February 19, but we have the exclusive stream below.

https://soundcloud.com/jacqueryal/wish-1/s-U1C9G

Tag: alt-pop