ANGEL

thoughts on leaving The Party

WE SOLD OUT UNION POOL! My first sold out headline show. I am so grateful. I cried the whole day after. Playing new songs was TBH very scary and I didn’t have my regular pre-show tequila shot to calm my nerves which might have been a mistake because I was a little shaky on stage! Playing a ton this summer. Feels so good to be putting out music again.

Last week I walked from my apartment in Greenpoint over the Williamsburg Bridge to a closet sale at the 7 Wonders store on Grand St in the Lower East Side. It’s a gorgeous day. The first time I’ve seen Manhattan all green and in bloom this year. I didn’t buy anything at the sale so I treated myself to an uber home. I rolled the windows all the way down and stuck my head out like a puppy. I tried to remember what it felt like to be in Manhattan when I was a kid. New York City was so magical and I didn’t w

ant anything else, just to exist in it. I moved to New York when I was 18 because I wanted to be at the party. I didn’t know what the party was. I didn’t know anyone at the party. But I knew there was one and I wanted in. Since then it’s been one long party for almost a decade. The party guests are always coming and going. An entirely new cast every few years. Sometimes there’s romance and sparks and laughter and adventure. Sometimes it’s lonely and weird. The guests share a common goal. You can sense it, but it remains unsaid. I’m not sure what I’m trying to accomplish, but I know I’ve come too far to leave now. And where else would I even go?

Taylor Swift’s new album, TTPD came out two weeks ago and the discourse in my friend group chat has been mixed. My personal feelings about the music as a body of work, separate from the way I am essentially listening to it as a tabloid, aren’t really relevant. The thing I love about Taylor is that she’s at the party too. Obviously it’s not the same one I’m at (though French Resistance was recorded in the same room as TTPD). I relate to Taylor because I think she wants something consistent, but she doesn’t want to leave the party. Choosing Matty Healy types and expecting them to change everything about their lifestyle and treat you like a capitol G, Girlfriend is the same brand of insane I am. Yeah, I’m sure I could find someone to be nice to me and cook me dinner every night if I didn’t insist on them also having a DJ adjacent side project. And then I complain that they are DJing too much and almost never cooking me dinner! Is it possible for a girl to be successful and in love? Sometimes I want to give up and move to the mountains. But I don’t really.

My new single, Angel, comes out May 15th. It’s the most vulnerable I’ve ever been in a song. In my 20’s I’ve struggled with confusing being sexy and cool with being happy. It’s still something I struggle with. The idea that if you’re popular enough, nothing can hurt you. So, when something does hurt me I feverishly self improve. I go out constantly. I find someone who is succeeding at The Party and try to convince them to love me. It’s very shallow. I want to change, but I don’t know how because everyone who’s not at the party feels like an alien to me. I don’t think men have this problem. Men can be at the party and get a girl to follow them from room to room like a dog forever. I’ve been the girl, but I’ve never been the man.

“Angel” is about faking orgasms and using sex to feel powerful. When I am attracted to someone, I’m seeing it all from above. Looking at them looking at me at my most flattering angle. I’m obsessed with men, but I think what I’m really attracted to is power. What I really want is to make someone who has what I want to feel weak in my presence. If they need me, even just for a moment, I am one step closer to becoming them.

“STOP ROMANTICIZING SADNESS” is something I wrote in my notes app in big capitol letters last week. Lately, I’m doing better. I’m less interested in doing something painful for the story. I’m not running from a quiet night alone. I’m making plans because I want to, not because I have something to prove to the voice in my head who tells me I’m the biggest loser in Brooklyn. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m not ready to leave the party yet.

I made a speech onstage at Union Pool. I practiced it everyday for weeks leading up to the show. I wanted to express how proud I was of my band. Recording this album was emotionally tumultuous for reasons I would love to get into publicly, but for now if you want to know you’ll have to ask me in person because I can’t keep a secret. We spent a lot of time waiting for someone to grant us permission to proceed with the project who didn’t have my best interest in mind. I wanted to find catharsis in writing about how existentially lonely I felt in 2022, but instead I felt angry and paranoid and defeated for most of 2023. I feel lucky that Matti, Nardo and Zoe were as eager to make something, no matter what, as I was. My favorite parts of it were recorded in Matti’s basement in Ridgewood and at my parents’ house in Massachusetts. I think it can be really easy to get swept up in chasing success, social politics, comparisons and glitzy shiny viral shit that we forget why we make art. I’m so lucky that I have my band to remind me that we do it because it’s fun. Because we like making stuff! It seems so obvious. “Angel” was recorded ENTIRELY at my parents’ house. It sounds huge. It sounds so different than than anything we’ve done and anything I’ve really been hearing lately. We couldn’t have made it any other way than the four of us just fucking around. I think it’s my favorite song I’ve ever made and you can pre-save it HERE.