Californian folk-noir, jazz flecked waltzes, torch songs of surrender and tender-hearted tales suited for Hollywood’s golden age are the order of the day for Eve Adams and her forthcoming album Metal Bird (a loosely themed concept album drawing on personal grief and hope), set for release in mid-January on Basin Rock (Julie Byrne, Nadia Reid, Aoife Nessa Frances, Johanna Samuels).
“These songs reflect my experience, whether I like it or not. I felt lost at the time… like everything in my life was completely up in the air,” Eve reveals. “It was a time of waiting. Observing. Wondering. The songs on Metal Bird were a way for me to escape to a different space and time. Like flying, they transported me. As we listen, we’re suspended on a journey that is no longer in our hands.”
As a student of film and photography, Eve’s own voyeuristic portraits enhance Metal Bird’s dramatic greyscale (she designed the artwork); initially exploring the concept of Tragedy, they add a creepy, slinky melancholy like peering through the window of a bleak domestic scene. “That’s the beauty of art and music; you can create a new world that exists in this blur between fact and fiction,” she says.
Lost in a daydream, somewhere between memory and fantasy, the video she shot on Saint Monica Pier for first single “La Ronde”, also our Song of the Day, places her amidst the ever-turning wheel of love, a hesitant passenger contemplating the throes of romance. The carnival setting gives shape and motion to the feeling of being swept-up and suspended in time, lights whirring and flashing, a magical scene for the singer’s internal drama to play out.
Recorded with saxophonist and producer Bryce Cloghesy (aka avant-pop soundscaper Military Genius, and of art-punk collective, Crack Cloud), Metal Bird combines airy folk with haunting soundscapes. The album takes listeners on an auditory voyage from sonorous lullabies, to dreamy ambience, skeletal jazz, sparse orchestral arrangements and high fidelity vocals that are unafraid to be heard loud and clear.
Pre-Order Metal Bird – Bandcamp | Basin Rock