It blew up on triple j Unearthed, as did the more humorous follow-up ‘Sunglasses’, a trip-hop track about posers all wearing the same RayBans. Take her first release, ‘Suicide Blonde’, a lo-fi rap about an older figure in the then 16-year-old’s life, a woman who Shaw had to look after due to her struggles with alcoholism and addiction. Despite the obvious metaphor ‘Butterfly Blue’ offers for her artistic transformation, chrysalis and all – Shaw laughs off the urge to make the comparison herself, saying the title’s “not that deep” – with this album Mallrat hasn’t radically transformed so much as grown into herself. But Shaw has always shifted between sounds. Mallrat on the cover of NME Australia #29īlurry, genre-defying pop is the sound du jour as labels hope to place songs on as many streaming playlists as possible. “I wanted to see if I could blur all of these things into one blurry ball of energy.” “When I wrote these lyrics I was playing with the idea that we talk about sex and prayer and violence and power with very similar language,” she said upon its release. The latter is filled with ’90s grunge guitars and reverb that consume Shaw as she sings about a nebulous presence – “it” – in her hair, teeth and all around her. The former is a tender ballad that touches on an old relationship (“ When we first met I was too young for you”), Shaw – in demo vocals recorded at 3am – sounding more raw and exhausted than anywhere else. That sense of mutually assured destruction resurfaces across the album, including on the title track ‘Butterfly Blue’ and third single ‘Teeth’, two songs both co-produced with Alice Ivy. “Life isn’t as simple as feeling one way about one thing… All my favourite songs are confusing, or contradict themselves” She makes jumping into a bad decision sound light and airy, but the song’s outro spells out the danger: a sample of an ’90s track by Memphis rapper Gangsta Pat, namely a skittering line about having a “ bullet with your name on it”. Over chopped up tropical and choral synths, Shaw sings about giving into a relationship she knows will hurt (“ I know your type” is the opening lyric). ‘Rockstar’ hinted at a ’90s dream pop influence, and was followed by the different-sounding ‘Your Love’.
Written over the course of a year, you can hear Shaw evolve within the song, shifting from a peacocking chorus into a more assured confidence, where she doesn’t need to posture. A languid song where Shaw sings about how her future success will make a current breakup feel like nothing, it’s hopeful and hardened at once. She talked to us at length about the “fuck you song” ‘Rockstar’, which she eventually released in October that year. In 2020, Mallrat told N ME she wanted her debut record to sound “like angelic children’s choirs and monster trucks at the same time”.
When pop is done with respect for the listeners, it’s perfect and exciting and beautiful.” “You just think, ‘wow, the people responsible for getting this on airwaves, actually recording this and sending it out to their team really don’t value the intelligence of their listeners and are happy to just feed them mashed potatoes with no salt and no flavour’. “It can be really insulting sometimes, what you hear on the radio,” Mallrat – real name Grace Shaw – says, sitting in a Sydney cafe while ensconced in an oversized quilted black coat. Deeply felt emotion and futuristic production collide on these 12 songs, forming a vision of pop music that both enthralls and challenges the listener. Mallrat’s multitudes unfurl on her long-awaited album ‘Butterfly Blue’, which finally lands May 13 after three EPs released from 2016 to 2019. When you worry so much about things making sense, you miss out on a lot of really important and human detail.” “To just have a song that’s ‘I’m angry’ or ‘I’m sad’ the whole time is one-dimensional.
Every musician has a list of songs they wish they wrote, a collection of perfect tracks that inspire envy as much as admiration.
0 kommentar(er)
