Posted by Amid the chaos and dark clouds of 2020 shines Brighton born pop savant GRACEY.
The 22 year old riser is rapidly re-shaping the UK pop landscape in her image, storming into the Top 10 in the process.
New EP ‘The Art Of Closure’ is out now, her broadest and most in-depth release to date.
It’s a surging, riveting slice of pop music, one that runs the gamut of emotions between ecstasy and melancholy.
Clash invited GRACEY to break down her new EP…
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‘99%’
This is a really is a special one for me – it was actually one of the first songs I wrote that I wanted to keep for my artist project and has been such a pillar that I developed my sound around.
It’s about being hesitant to jump in fully when you fall for someone because you’re afraid of getting hurt, but just trying to go with your heart! It finally felt right to drop it after all this time as the opening track for ‘The Art Of Closure’!
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‘Empty Love’
‘Empty Love’ was a song I wrote after returning from three months of vocal rest after a vocal surgery last year. During this time I found myself in such a vulnerable state, one where I was so obsessed with my phone as it was my only way of communicating, and found myself searching for validation from strangers on the Internet, as many of us do.
It’s essentially a love song to social media. Through writing it and releasing it, it has helped me distance myself from that bad habit and find the acceptance within myself.
It was absolutely amazing to get my pal Ruel on the song as well; he’s such a talent and I’m so in love with his voice, as we all are.
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‘Don’t’
Even though lyrically this song is quite sad, to me ‘Don’t’ is strong and empowering. It’s about knowing your worth, value, the way that you deserve to be treated by someone, and having the respect for yourself to walk away from toxic situations.
It’s everything I wish I’d said at the time (hindsight is a beautiful thing, haha). But I also wanted to juxtapose the lyric with a powerful, up-tempo beat and baseline to really highlight the strength of the message.
‘Like That’
‘Like That’ is an optimistic, up-tempo, funky fun little bop and I do really love her. I started writing ‘Like That’ at the end of 2019, but actually only got round to finishing it during lockdown because of some lovely fans who were asking about it from an Instagram highlights clip I put up earlier that year.
Lockdown made me revisit music that I otherwise may have overlooked, so I was so grateful for these people bringing my attention back to it! It was at that point I decided to re-write and re-work it and send it over to my friend Alexander 23, who I believe added so much and elevated it to where it is now!
‘Care Less’
I wanted ‘Care Less’ to be an acoustic moment on the mini album. A track which solely focused around the lyrics and the delivery of them. This is actually one of the only tracks I wrote and vocalled before my surgery (I feel like you can kind of tell) – but I feel like you can really hear the emotion in my voice as the situation was pretty raw at the time of writing it, so re-doing it didn’t feel right!
I wrote this one in Sweden with a friend – I remember sitting on the floor and as soon as he played the chords (which were originally on this strange MIDI harp-like sound) I just instantly free-styled the first verse lyrics and melody in one.
The song just felt like a therapy session, getting everything off my chest. That’s why I really wanted this one included on ‘The Art Of Closure’, because that’s exactly what it helped me achieve.
‘Alone In My Room (Gone)’
This is probably the most vulnerable song on the whole of the mini album. It’s more of the early stages of closure, the point at which you’ve only just to come to terms with the fact that the relationship has ended – the denial stage, if you will.
I found that I’m someone that likes to pretend I’m fine to others because I hate pity, I don’t like the idea of being a burden on people. So writing this song really gave me the chance to address that.
‘Don’t Need Love’
This is a song I did with my friend 220KID and to me represents love in the 21st century. Sometimes putting pressure on love like we do can just hinder it; that’s what the lyric surrounds.
It’s still playful and fun though I feel and it’s one I can’t wait to perform live! I absolutely can’t believe we managed to get into the UK Top 10 together with it, it was a complete dream and I feel so happy that people connected with it in the same way that we did!
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‘The Art Of Closure’ is out now.