Rising Folk-Pop Songstress ALICIA BLUE Declares ‘I Want It Faster’ in Punchy New Anthem; Self-Directed iPhone Video Clip Out Now
“….[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
Rising Folk-Pop Songstress
ALICIA BLUE
Declares ‘I Want It Faster’ in Punchy
New Anthem
Self-Directed iPhone Video Clip Out Now
Inner Child Work Part 2 EP Out January 20th via Magnetic Moon
December 9, 2022 (Nashville, TN) — “There’s a killer, a killer, hooked on me/There’s a finger, a trigger, won’t let me be/There’s a pressure, decidin’ how to be true/But, how can you be when the killer is you?.” folk-pop siren Alicia Blue contemplates on her new single, “I Want It Faster,” asking some tough questions and laying out an interior dilemma that’s all too familiar: the urge to act. Now. Sooner. Faster. Even though it might not yet be the right time. It’s the anatomy of self sabotage. The third single from the Los-Angeles-to-Nashville transplant’s forthcoming EP, Inner Child Work PT. 2 (out January 20 via Magnetic Moon), which caused Rocking Magpie to recently observe, “Blue could easily go the pop singer route—she has the voice for it and effortlessly writes sweet melodies,” features a stylish video (which premieres today on YouTube), which was shot and directed by Alicia herself. Watch it here: https://youtu.be/dg2b-v8lKfg.
“I Want It Faster” underscores her ability to write disarmingly honest odes to battling the beasts that lurk inside our heads. If this were a horror film, Alicia Blue can confirm the unsettling news: the call is definitely coming from inside the house. But, there’s also some positivity in knowing that this struggle is a perfectly normal part of the human experience.
“It’s the critical voice within, sharpening our existence and purpose, but then also cutting them, too,” she confides. “It’s double-edged. Only one who has mastered life has mastered this.”
In other words, only Buddha himself is spared from this particular quandary. Alicia, meanwhile, recommends making peace with our pushy instincts by trying to better understand where our motivations come from and, perhaps, realizing that sometimes our minds are lying to us. “What does it mean that I am all of these things?” she muses in “I Want It Faster,” deciding in the end that we must learn to merge all the different aspects of ourselves—the good, the bad, and the ‘in a hurry’—and have some compassion when self loathing arises.
“Compassion for that moment usually starts to dissolve those different parts of us… Or integrates them in a healthier way,” she says. “Making peace is the only option.”
“I Want It Faster” is Alicia’s most rocking single yet and the latest installment in a creative exploration that’s built something toothier from the more hushed folk of 2020’s gorgeous Bravebird, a turn that’s caused American Songwriter to proclaim, “She’s stunning in her transformation from a dreaming poet to a living artist, and in the short pocket of time since Bravebird.” Working with former Cage the Elephant guitarist Lincoln Parish in the producer’s chair has brought forward aspects of Alicia Blue’s musical personality that needed to flourish. Collaborating suits her.
“I wrote this with the great Lera Lynn,” she explains. “She had the riff, which echoed my concept. I’d had a poem, and she pretty much gave my lyrics a turn on their head so that they would punch straight through to the darker places. To the gut. I never really knew how this song would sound in the end, but I think Lera did.”
The new video for “I Want It Faster” marks Alicia’s fourth self-directed clip made on her iPhone, and in between performance shots, the footage she’s compiled brilliantly reflects the themes in the song: a train ploughs forward, but the tilted horizon makes its trajectory seem unruly; herded deer scurry around, forced to move by something unseen.
“It’s real life,” she says of her latest iPhone art. “Every moment of the video that wasn’t shot in the studio was an organic accumulation of regular moments I found valuable. They weren’t shot for the video. They were shot over a period of months simply because I liked them. Because I found something beautiful that day and had to keep it. I walk in Shelby Park every morning. I see those deer everyday and I love them, of course—the innocence, and yes, sometimes naïve nature in them, always amazes me. That same nature I find in myself too, and that also amazes me.”
“I Want It Faster” arrives on the heels of “Best Hands” and “Young,” the latter of which features John Paul White of The Civil Wars who also co-wrote the track, collectively giving preview to the upcoming second half of Inner Child Work. “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 aforementioned Nashville-based songwriter and producer Lincoln Parish, who helped to provide a solid musical foundation for the new songs, allowing her to focus on conjuring her most creative songwriting 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. “These songs 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.”
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.”
“I Want It Faster” is now available via Magnetic Moon and can be purchased/streamed here. 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”
