Southern California-born, Los Angeles-based solo singer/songwriter Lexi Vega has announced her debut album as Mini Trees, Always In Motion, due out Sept. 17 via Run For Cover Records. Today’s (July 27) new preview of the album, “Carrying On,” follows “Spring,” which we hailed as one of the week’s best songs upon its April release.
Where “Spring” was more of an intimate acoustic strummer, “Carrying On” is a forceful, riff-driven rocker; the former track overflowed with romantic feelings, while the latter is consumed by an unknowable angst. Over slickly propulsive drums and bass, Vega’s breathy vocals evoke that singular feeling so many of us became all too familiar with in quarantine: overwhelmed, yet empty, spinning out while stuck in stasis. “Patterns change in place / Colors paint my mistakes / It’s more than I can take,” Vega sings, “Now I’m hiding my face in the sheet / Hovering somewhere between / At least it brings a sense of peace.” Meanwhile, in the accompanying video, Vega’s protagonist is stranded in the middle of nowhere and controlled by beige-clad captors, her actions no longer her own. The best she can hope for is to draw strength from a bolder, freer version of herself, who inspires her to leave her keepers in the dust, if only for a few fleeting moments.
Vega says of her new song in a statement:
I wrote “Carrying On” in the middle of 2020 when I was out in the desert escaping the city and reflecting on the unsettling new way of life we all had to adopt during the pandemic. Despite how in some ways life had begun to feel mundane again, there was a constant underlying fear that everything could unravel at any moment. In a sarcastic tone, the song questions my ability to hold it all together. We tried to capture this sentiment with the music video, displaying a character who is being led through the motions of day-to-day life, but beginning to recognize that something isn’t quite right.
Mini Trees will share the stage with Thao at Portland, Oregon’s Topaz Farm on Aug. 19 before headlining a Sept. 30 hometown show at L.A.’s Moroccan Lounge, with support from A.O. Gerber. Her 2021 tour itinerary is due to expand in the near future, though, so stay tuned—tickets are here.
Watch the “Carrying On” video below, and see the Always In Motion tracklist and Vega’s 2021 tour dates further down. You can preorder her record right here.
Always In Motion Tracklist:
01. Moments In Between
02. Doomsday
03. Underwater?
04. Cracks In The Pavement
05. Youth
06. Spring
07. Carrying On
08. Differently
09. Numb
10. Otherwise
Mini Trees Tour Dates:
August
19 – Portland, OR @ Topaz Farm w/ Thao
September
30 – Los Angeles, CA @ Moroccan Lounge w/ A.O. Gerber
