ALICIA BLUE Looks Within To Acknowledge That She, Herself Is In The “Best Hands” With Her Own Presence
“….[Inner Child Work] sparkles and shines, with enough darkness to provide satisfying contrast, making it shine even brighter throughout. She is a top-notch song writer and has always been. But her new work looks to make a bigger splash where her folkier music would probably only have a niche audience. Intelligent, catchy, prescient. It’s an impressive batch of songs from an evolving artist. The best of folk, the best of pop.” – Northern Transmissions
“With ‘DTMTS (Don’t Tell Me To Smile)’ Blue diverts from her folk roots, instead crafting her take on shimmering indie rock. Blue’s layered vocal harmonies and plaintive melodies steadily build into an emotive ballad, bolstered by iridescent guitar textures and cathartic lyrical confessions.” – Under The Radar
“[‘Saline Waters’] is hauntingly beautiful, and her vocals have an alluring Tori Amos or Kate Bush quality to them. The song has a dark-wave beat that gets you lost in the music. The picturesque lyrics linger.” – Riff Magazine
” … mystical and chill-inducing…. Raconteur and chanteuse of the people, Alicia Blue invents her own line of folk with every release.”
– Grimy Goods
“…listening to her songs feels like being invited into her intimate diary, a world full of dreams and secrets.” – Atwood Magazine – 2021 Artists to Watch
“Blessed with a rich, resonant voice, Alicia Blue invests every phrase of her songs with gutsy attitude.” – Music Connection
ALICIA BLUE
Looks Within To Acknowledge That She, Herself Is In The “Best Hands” With Her Own Presence
Inner Child Work Part 2 EP Out January 20th via Magnetic Moon
OCTOBER 21, 2022 (Nashville, TN) — “So much of my life, I’d been looking outside to the other, to my lover, or anyone else that wasn’t me, for some sort of confirmation that I exist, for safety, for a right to be here, for praise and validation,” says Nashville-based magnetic indie-folk singer-songwriter ALICIA BLUE about her new single “Best Hands.” “At some point, the patterns lead to a sure and slow emotional death, one with no true enlightenment and filled with toxicity.” The second single off her Inner Child Work Part 2 EP (out on January 20th via Magnetic Moon), “Best Hands” speaks on the frustration of being stuck in unhealthy habits and sequences.
To Alicia, “Best Hands” is a song that feels like a self-help reminder to break those unhealthy habits. “It’s a tiny bomb that blows any toxic beliefs into a million pieces until only reality is left. ‘Best Hands’ is also about wanting to be the girl with the most cake and then realizing you are the fucking cake itself. You are the best hands. You are the fucking cake. It’s all inside of you. Power and peace are on the inside and all in your hands.”
“Best Hands” arrives on the heels of previous single “Young,” which features John Paul White of The Civil Wars and it turns Dylan’s “Forever Young” sentiment on its head and urges acceptance in the aging process, “I don’t wanna live forever young…I want to evolve, grow, and then get the hell outta here when my time is up,” Alicia laughs.
“These Inner Child Work EPs and my existence as an artist come from a need to connect and develop relationships—yet simultaneously I’ve always felt like this lone candle in a dark room,” Alicia expresses, describing the self-reflection she employed in writing the songs. For both EPs, the former Los Angeles native found herself working with Nashville-based songwriter and producer Lincoln Parish, (originally of the band Cage the Elephant), who helped to provide a solid musical foundation for her songs so she could focus on doing her best and most creative writing work to date. Recording in Nashville also gave Alicia a perspective on her life in Los Angeles; having been born and raised in Southern California, and never having left the city, not even for college. “Each song on the EPs are really just about the difficulty of navigating this life and not having all the proper tools to live it in the most successful way, and by successful, I mean the healthiest way. I like to think that getting this all out helps me in some way.”
Releasing her first EP in 2019, fate fell immediately for her with Starbucks asking for her song “Magma” to be featured in stores worldwide via their Starbucks Acoustic playlist on Spotify. Garnering immediate attention as a songwriter and singer, Alicia quickly became a pivotal figure on the LA songwriting circuit. She’s been featured in publications including Billboard and Atwood Magazine, as well as LA’s legendary KCRW. Alicia Blue’s first full-length album Bravebird was released April 2020 in the middle of a global pandemic, securing spots on Spotify’s influential Fresh Finds Pop and Fresh Finds Rock playlists and garnering a whole new round of buzz and attention. In January 2021, she was featured at the top of Atwood Magazine’s “2021 Artists to Watch.” American Songwriter sums it up best when they proclaimed, “She’s stunning in her transformation from a dreaming poet to a living artist, and in the short pocket of time since Bravebird.”
“Best Hands” is now available via Magnetic Moon and can be purchased/streamed here https://hypeddit.com/aliciablue/besthands. Inner Child Work Part 2 will be released on January 20, 2023via Magnetic Moon.
Tracklist
1.“Best Hands“
2. “Picasso Blue”
3. “Young (feat. John Paul White)”
4. “I Want It Faster”
5. “Believer”
