Next month, avant-pop artist Ramona Gonzalez (aka Nite Jewel) will release her long-awaited forthcoming album No Sun, her first full-length since 2017’s excellent Real High. She’s previously shared “This Time,” a track that feels cinematic and full despite very few sonic elements, and today (July 20) she’s released the album’s second single, “Before I Go.” Written on the apartment floor after the singer was left by her husband, the track features Gonzalez’s heartbreaking lyrics led by electric keys and a low thumping bass, leading to strings that coddle her voice with a hushed intensity.
Of the track, Gonzalez says, “I really did mean before I go … forever, that I would die. It was this feeling that tumbled into the container of song. The harmony and the melody became the safety net for the emotions that might kill me.” Following the dissolution of her marriage, Gonzalez’s studies of female musical lamentation practices formed the backbone of No Sun, and the album seeks in part to “question and remodel the archetype of female pain,” per a press release.
Listen to “Before I Go” below (or stream it here), and revisit the video for “This Time” further down. No Sun is out Aug. 27 on Gloriette Records.
