After hooking us with February’s “Loose,” her first single in three years, Brooklyn-based musician Grace Ives has announced her sophomore album, Janky Star (June 10, True Panther/Harvest). She’s also shared a new single from the album, “Lullaby,” which arrives with a video depicting what a press release describes as “a romantic horse girl cosplay,” directed by Logan White.
Aiming to open up from the stilted claustrophobia of her past releases and expand her sound to fit new material she had written, Ives enlisted Justin Raisen (Yves Tumor, Charli XCX) to help bring her vision to life as the record’s co-producer. The pair worked in Los Angeles to create an album that encapsulated Ives’ experiences of entering adulthood, as well as her hit-or-miss attempts to find a sense of purpose when the odds seem stacked against her. “Everyone has a shitty star tattoo/stick n poke, that’s never perfect, or is rough around the edges,” she said in a statement, explaining the meaning behind the title. “A beautiful thing to think about is that stars on earth look like blobs but in space really defined structures.”
“Lullaby,” the record’s closing track, embodies this thesis to a T, showing Ives “living the same day over and over again,” as she puts it in the same statement: “This song is about the comfort and anxiety that comes with isolating yourself. Homebody’s anthem.” Over a layer of buzzing synths, a hypnotic drum beat and a loping keyboard melody, Ives describes longing for the ideal relationships in the romantic movies she watches on a loop: “Root for the lover in every scene / I watch the sun setting on the screen / What a mess, what a lovely mess / What a lie, what a lie.” The minimal lyrics capture fleeting moments of feeling content with her own loneliness, like listening to the neighbors sing along to SZA through the wall while she does splits in the kitchen of the apartment she’s viewing, technically not alone but entertaining herself out of necessity. The song’s final resigned refrain of “No, it’s nothing to be sad about / it’s just something I’ve been thinking about” sums up the situation both here and on “Loose,” reflecting upon Ives’ lowest moments as she dusts herself off to try again.
Check out the video for “Lullaby” below, and keep scrolling for Janky Star’s album details. You can preorder the album here.
Janky Star Art:
Janky Star Tracklist:
01. Isn’t It Lovely
02. Loose
03. Burn Bridges
04. Angel Of Business
05. Lazy Day
06. Shelly
07. Back In LA
08. On The Ground
09. Win Win
10. Lullaby
