EP REVIEW: GEORGIE “OVERDUE”
Feature
Photo credit: Megan Fletcher
Georgie has an overwhelmingly unique, stunning aesthetic that touches on darkness, fragility, brokenness, and vulnerability with her soulful, sensitive vocal that tastes like mint and black cherry while the multi-layered, vividly powerful sense-fused production permeates your sensation and immerses you with its deep moody atmosphere.
As a vocalist, Georgie’s expressive vocal style has the versatility to capture the subtle shifts in the storytelling in detail while her brilliant tonality becomes a new addiction to the ears. As a songwriter and producer, Georgie created a neon-infused, unique world that compresses vivid imageries into sounds. Mesmerizing melodies and immersive moods get under your skin and shift the atmosphere in any space. She takes you to an artistic world where the light and darkness are tangled together with complicated feels and stories.
Weaving R&B, soul, dark-pop together into her own vocabulary, “No Hope” opens with a glitchy, immense dark pop where her voice slowly swirls and twists. It submerges you into its world that is built on echoing layers. “39” features a simplistic guitar, electronic soft beat and highlights the storytelling in her voice that really captures the dark melancholy, while “Don’t Worry” tunes into the fuzzy rich vibe with hanging piano chords and wavy pads where the catchy melodies create a natural nostalgia.
SINGLE REVIEW: HONEY&EVE “IS IT OK”
Discovery
Photo credit: Fabs Black
Honey&Eve is storming the pop world with a grand, cinematic gesture. Moody, emotive, and cinematic, there are no better words to describe the signature style of Honey&Eve. Revolving around the mental and emotional struggles of attempting to break free from a toxic, abusive relationship, “Is It Ok” gets under your skin with its powerful storytelling and poised imageries.
The Berlin-based duo dives deeper into the dynamic of a toxic relationship. The bright and happy side that keeps them in the same place, and the dark, abusive side that keeps warning them of danger. The drastic pull towards both sides creates strong tension and contrast, which Honey&Eve captured and portrayed so vividly through their dark, cinematic soundscape.
In the cinema version, they utilized the emotive, contrasting nature in the cello’s shifting timbre and movingly weaved another layer of storytelling into their sounds. Honey&Eve also creates simple yet powerful lyricism that easily stuck in your head: “ocean on fire” and “is it ok?”
ALBUM REVIEW: BODY DRAMA “OUT OF MY WAY”
Discovery
Body Drama has a thematic approach to a sexy, dark-pop sound environment, centering the storytelling in its main vocal line. Out of My Way has a sensitive, low-spirited, dreamful texture that gently grows in you—an album for a quiet time that you won’t be able to forget after listening.
“Sick Crack” is nostalgic. It reminds you of sunset in an urban environment by the ocean. A sad, dreamful Lana Del Ray aesthetic with a laid-back drumbeat in the slow twirling disco light, warm and glistening. Revolving around a captivating theme, “Sick Crack” is haunting and unforgettable.
“Never Learn A Lesson” is a tender, immersive long song. In its ocean-like dreamscape, angelic whispers float into your ear. The sweet voice comes closer and tells a story about the heart and the soul. In its resounding drone, the song draws you into its own space and time.
“Heat Haze” has more movement in the arrangement of fractures with buzzing bass and low strings where the floating voice leads to a lighter, silky soundscape. Epic percussion evokes feelings you didn’t know were there—a buzz right under your nose, dancing and chasing you like a fairy.
Written by Katrina Yang
FOLLOW BODY DRAMA
ARTIST INTERVIEW: ELEANOR JOY “ANON. (GOLDFISH IN MY BATHTUB)
Staff Pick
“Though change is inescapable, our emotional connections always deepen and grow in ways that we can never predict. While nostalgia becomes our greatest enemy, it also becomes our greatest friend. The mystery and excitement we associate with elements of life isn’t a golden era because this morphs into our actual reality as we gain experience.” Eleanor Joy on “Alon. (Goldfish In My Bathtub)”
In a submerged texture, light piano introduced us to a fictional, metaphoric story of being in the bathtub with goldfish, from the beginning of feeling playful and new with the experience to forging intimacy with the goldfish to feeling resentful, trapped in the same, repeated experience to the eventual resolution in peace and acceptance, “Anon. (Goldfish In My Bathtub” explores a woman’s journey with menstruation in relation with her body and mind.
Photo credit: Alex Honour, Yvonne Han
When creating the song, Joy was reading a biblical story where Jesus healed a woman who has been suffering from bleeding for 12 years. According to the Old Testament, she would have been “unclean” for the duration of bleeding, and therefore anyone or anything which touched her would also be unclean.
“I was inspired by the stigma that has surrounded menstruation. The way it has been used to control and manipulate women through shame, the connotation that having a period suggests adulthood,” said Eleanor Joy, “Though a period is only +/- a week of bleeding a month, it feels like something we are constantly preparing for as if it is always at the back of your mind. I wanted to express the idea in a palatable way that reflects how I view my period.”
Photo credit: Alex Honour, Yvonne Han
As a child, we are often taught that the sign of our first period symbolizes womanhood. The expectation and excitement for a girl waiting for her first period kept building up to the point of arrival. It quickly faded, leaving days of continuing bleeding and years of the menstrual cycle to come. “I felt unfair,” she commented.
Eleanor Joy intended to contrast the default goldfish symbolism of good luck, prosperity, success, and wealth. “I wanted the respect of the symbol to be fought with the feelings of a character, a constant balance between loving and tolerating,” she said.
The theme of desire and longing for comfort and peace is explored throughout the track. “While understanding and connections deepen, we aren’t cut off from the positive we used to find within things that have changed,” said Eleanor Joy.
FOLLOW ELEANOR JOY