MICHELLE - Songs About You Specifically [Transparent Blue Vinyl]

TRANSGRESSIVE

£23.04

Format: LP
Catalogue No.: TRANS814X
Barcode: 5400863165659
Release Date: 27 Sep 2024
Genre: Synth pop

MICHELLE’s first project of buoyant R&B tracks was an ode to New York City, the city where all 6 members of the band grew up. But amid the success of that project, 2018’s HEATWAVE, and 2022’s AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS, they left home and broadened their perspective. The band travelled across the U.S. and Europe opening for Gus Dapperton, Arlo Parks, and Mitski, headlining their own shows, and playing festivals.

While writing their new album, Songs About You Specifically, MICHELLE decided to rent out a house in Ojai, California. Surrounded by lizards, the smell of ripe cactus fruit, and endless expanses of sand, they experienced a sense of solitude and closeness they hadn’t before. It shifted the tone of their work. While their earlier music channelled the churning restlessness of the city, these news songs meander and expand into starry shoegaze reveries, slick funk riffs, and lilting 80s synth pop.

Their newfound closeness also helped them write more vulnerable music. On Songs About You Specifically, the band members express their complicated desires, voice their regrets, and own up to their moments of selfishness. By slowing down, cutting out any distractions, and fostering a sense of communal closeness that necessitated honesty, MICHELLE ended up with a collection of songs that feel like the truth.

1 1 Mentos and Coke
1 2 Blissing
1 3 Akira
1 4 Cathy
1 5 Dropout
1 6 Noah
2 1 Missing on One
2 2 I'm Not Trying
2 3 Oontz
2 4 Painkiller
2 5 Trackstar

‘After Dinner We Talk Dreams’ album reviews

- A dinner-party album that immediately captures the importance of gatherings like it. We only find our best in each other – The Line of Best Fit, 4*

- The close-knit six-piece collective are a breath of fresh air that exemplify perfectly a new generation of artists using newfound creative freedom to express themselves in a fearless and ambitious way, DORK, 4*

- The band's second album captures the tenderness and joy at play with the knotty tensions of growing up in New York City. – NME, 4*

- A well-produced, vibrant album brimming with personality, Gigwise 4*

- The New York collective's sound is as cohesive as ever on their sophomore album, Paste Magazine 4*