“Smoke Signals” the first song from the record, demonstrates so many of Phoebe Bridgers‘ greatest gifts: the cool-yet-warm approachability, the languid grace of her arrangements, the gift for powerful phrasing and precise scene-setting. But there is a new song the follow-up, “Motion Sickness,” showcases another side altogether, as Bridgers wraps her voice around a rich and rumbling midtempo rocker. Check it out here.
Phoebe Bridgers might be a relativly new artist, but she already has an impeccable CV. Her debut three-song single, Killer, was produced and released by Ryan Adams, she’s toured with Conor Oberst and Julien Barker, and is set to release her debut album on the excellent Dead Oceans Records . That album, “Strangers In The Alps”, is out next month, and ahead of the release this week Phoebe has shared the video to her latest single, “Motion Sickness”.
Building around reverberating guitars and driving drum beats, Motion Sickness has a touch of The War On Drugs, if they were fronted by Mackenzie Scott or Hazel English. Lyrically it seems to deal with trying to escape the ups and downs of a struggling relationship, as Phoebe sings, “there are no words in English I can sing to drown you out”.The video, directed by Justin Miller, was apparently inspired by Phoebe’s, “brother Jackson singing “Down With the Sickness” to me in karaoke with 100% commitment in an orange jumpsuit”, it is predictably excellent.
Phoebe Bridgers is a musician with a hugely bright future and more importantly if it all sounds good it’ll be thoroughly deserved. Stranger In The Alps is out September 22nd via Dead Oceans.
Produced by Ryan Adams at Pax-Am Studios, Bridgers is – in Adams’ words — a “musical unicorn” who “could make a jar of sand sound like ‘Blood On The Tracks’”. Possessing vulnerability and strength in equal measure, Phoebe Bridgers is one of my favorite up and coming singer-songwriters. I love what she’s doing, I’m excited to see what she does next, and I hope you enjoy it as well.
I met Ryan through my boyfriend, Marshall Vore, another amazing songwriter. We all hung out, I played Ryan some songs, and the next day we recorded three of my songs. Just me, singing and playing Ryan’s guitar, with his doctor, his actual literal doctor, on pedal steel.
“Killer” – Phoebe Bridgers. From the EP Killer.
Phoebe Bridgers releases her debut album ‘Stranger In The Alps’ on Dead Oceans Records. She has been writing songs since age 11, Bridgers spent her teenage years performing at open mic nights and busking throughout her hometown before recording a debut three-song single, “Killer,” with Ryan Adams in his L.A. studio. “Killer” was released on Adams’ Pax-Am label in spring of 2015. So far we’ve heard the first two tracks from plaintive singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers’ imminent debut album “Smoke Signals” and “Motion Sickness.”
Now she’s sharing the album’s third song, and it’s just as impressive. In keeping with its title, “Funeral” is a dark and mournful ballad about singing at the memorial service “for a kid a year older than me.” There’s a gentle simplicity and grace in these guitar chords and violin accents that resembles some of Bridgers’ talented collaborators and tour mates; think Ryan Adams in his Heartbreaker era or the trembling minimalism of Julien Baker. “Jesus Christ, I’m so blue all the time,” Bridgers sings, “And that’s just how I feel/ Always have, and I always will.”
Phoebe Bridgers – “Funeral” from ‘Stranger In The Alps’ out September. 22nd on Dead Oceans.
“Stranger in the Alps” is Phoebe Bridgers new album out on September 22nd, 2017 on Dead Oceans
You can learn a lot about Phoebe Bridgers’ sound by her associations. Ryan Adams produced and released her 2015 debut EP Killer, and she’s opening for Conor Oberst on a European tour this winter. Perhaps most pertinently, she also played some shows with Julien Baker, with whom she shares the ability to elicit maximum power from minimal balladry. Bridgers, who is just 22 years old, has a new single and it will stop your heart.
Bridgers wrote “Smoke Signals” in a cabin outside Ketchum, Idaho, last spring. It finds her somberly emoting against a backdrop of guitar chords and orchestral swells. Sometimes her words are poetic: “I wanna live at a Holiday Inn where somebody else makes the bed/ We’ll watch TV while the lights on the street put all the stars to death.” Other times she’s more straightforward but just as powerful: “All of our problems, I’m gonna solve them/ With you riding shotgun, speeding ’cause fuck the cops.” References to Bowie, the Smiths, and Motörhead might capture your attention, but the recurring image of trash burning on the beach is what will linger with you
The 21-year-old singer-songwriter is comfortable in the rock, pop and Americana worlds — she even guested on this year’s Joyce Manor album. Recently, she has opened for Conor Oberst, Blake Babies and Julien Baker, and it’s been a year and a half since her killer single, “Killer.”
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