BEST EX Channels Darkwave/Synthpop With “Die For You (Soft Faith Remix)”
BEST EX
Channels Darkwave/Synthpop With
“Die For You (Soft Faith Remix)”
Out Now With A Smile Debut Album
via Iodine Recordings/Alcopop! Records
FEBRUARY 14, 2024 (NEW YORK, NY) – “When Kenny [Fletcher] pitched me the idea of a collab with his new synthpop band [Soft Faith], it was an immediate yes,” says Mariel Loveland of NYC-based indie-pop band Best Ex about the Soft Faith remix of “Die For You” (out today).
While the original version of “Die For You” is taken from her debut album With A Smile (out now on Iodine Recordings/Alcopop! Records) and is driven by airy pop rock sensibilities, the Soft Faith remix twists it into darker synthpop territory, finding strange bedfellows with bands like CHVRCHES, Wolfsheim, Visage, and even Depeche Mode.
“I have never done anything like this before. I’ve always been attracted to a darker sound, and this was finally the opportunity to explore it,” she says. “It’s like the polar opposite of the music I used to make when Kenny and I first met. I’m so proud to see my career constantly evolving, and I couldn’t be more in love with the remix.”
Featuring Mariel and collaborator Luxtides (moniker of singer songwriter Danni Bouchard), “Die For You” unabashedly calls out many of the (largely male) music industry gatekeepers who manipulate bright eyed neophytes to the music scene into doing their bidding. Getting Kenny of Soft Faith involved who has been right alongside Mariel since her early Candy Heart days and witnessed this practice, felt perfect.
“We went to college together, but I never knew him,” she says. “We actually met when he filled in as a guitarist on one of Candy Hearts’ biggest tours. It was a leap of faith. He was a stranger who became my lifeline.”
Listen/share: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/bestex/die-for-you-soft-faith-remix
While their tour together was during a “pretty tumultuous” time in her life, they’d stay up driving overnight to the next city, and when everyone else was sleeping, their late night conversations really helped her put everything into perspective. “I left that tour a way better person than I was when I went into it,” she recalls, reflecting on the internal growth she experienced from their talks. “I feel like, since then, he’s seen so much of my experience in the music industry—all the highs, lows, and double standards—that he really understood where ‘Die for You’ was coming from.”
She adds that the song can be summed up by the lyrics in the bridge: “They don’t see the things you do behind the doors you opened that I walked through.”
Throughout it all, With A Smile marks dramatic life changes that forced Mariel to re-examine her life. “I feel like I’ve aged a decade in three short years, and I think that’s all reflected on the album,” she realizes. “I met my husband and moved in with him almost instantly. We eloped. I became an aunt. I lost my grandma. When I listen, I literally hear myself coming of age.”
With A Smile Album Artwork
Tracklist:
- With a Smile
- Tell Your Friends
- Give Me a Break
- Salt On Skin
- I Promise To Ruin Your Life
- Stay With Me
- Die For You
- Cut Me Out
- What The Hell
- Joyride (Glad You Found Me)
- The End
- Daylight
Living in the shadow of NYC in Northern New Jersey, Mariel Loveland got her start battling it out in the rough and tumble suburban scene with her nostalgia-tinged punk outfit Candy Hearts in 2010. Within two short years, she went from playing basements across the East Coast to sharing the stage with pop punk heavyweights like Man Overboard, New Found Glory and Weezer. After a final stint on Vans Warped Tour in 2015, she adopted the moniker Best Ex, trading energetic guitars for fuzzed-out synths, dreamy acoustics and a melodic sweet tooth that rivaled Carly Rae Jepson‘s or Sky Ferreira‘s.
Loveland’s previous two EPs—Ice Cream Anti-Social (2017) and Good At Feeling Bad (2020)—were met with critical acclaim from publications like Billboard and Alternative Press, even landing airplay on BBC Radio 1. After inking a new record deal with Iodine Recordings, the singer-songwriter is overjoyed that her debut Best Ex full-length album With A Smile is out now.
Best Ex’s With A Smile is out now via Iodine Recordings/Alcopop! Records.
Vinyl is available from Iodine and Deathwish Inc. in the U.S. HERE and Alcopop! In the UK and EU HERE, including a limited edition vinyl pressing of 250 copies on half orange and half midnight.
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