Amorie – Volume One EP
Break-ups hurt. We’ve all been through them, but few of us have turned the resultant experience into an EP quite like Volume One. Enter the enigmatic Amorie (pronounced with a capital A), a London-based American with the emotional acumen to transform three of the stages of grief into something really rather positive.
Volume One is thus an engaging narrative comprising the early stages of decline, the turmoil of finally calling it quits and then the wicked temptation of longing and heartbreak. While its source material is undeniably bleak, the down-tempo production of Toronto beat-maker Patrick Perez nevertheless permits Amorie’s shadowy electro-pop to shimmer.
It’s this enticing yin and yang that has understandably caught the ears of those running programming at BBC Radio 6/Introducing of late, affording the newcomer favourable coverage on the NME’s Emerging feature too. A recent headline slot at Shoreditch’s Workshop has inevitably followed while Volume One will be launched March 16th, 2018 at The Jacaranda in Liverpool, a city Amorie holds dear in her heart thanks to graduating there from Paul McCartney’s Institute for Performing Arts.
Co-written with Chicago poet Abbie Nielsen, dark lead single “Cold” was released in February. Inspired by “low, full-bodied female voices” and Amorie’s love for modern electronic composition, a seductive skitter of minimal percussion and bass combines with her sultry vocal to create a poppy tableau with a dangerous undertow and a pretty special subby drop. Its successor, “Enough” is much less immediate. Negative vibes running high, it’s heavy on the echo, disembodied clicks, compressions and skeletal chords lurching to fill out the track’s cavernous space alongside choral backing and BIG percussion. A near-operatic turn latterly conjures thoughts of Zola Jesus’s wintery Taiga album while the pleading melisma of the vocal in cathartic closer “Lover, Please” can’t help but invoke all the dizzying feelings of love and loss.
Time is a great healer however, and happily Volume Two is already in the works, a collection that will be “a lot more optimistic. One is the dark; Two is the dawn. One for when things are going wrong: Two for when you’re in love and feeling good.” Turns out your mother was right. Every cloud does have a silver lining. Bag a listen to stand-out track “Cold” below:
~The three-track Volume One EP is released 16th March 2018 on cassette via Ramber Records (cassette plays all three tracks on both sides).~