Girl Valley is a bedroom pop project from Chicago. This release, be kind be careful be yourself, is what they describe as “throwaways from 2016”, but I’ve been spinning these bite-size pop gems quite a lot lately and thought I’d write a belated little something.
Most of the songs on the release are short and hazy, glowing gently like milky moonlight, flickering at the edges like an old Super 8 movie in a darkened room, the vocals at times barely there at all. Opener ‘tender warning’ is soft and dusky, all shadowy greys and purples, while ‘cool girls’ deals in the satisfaction and freedom that comes with being yourself and remaining headstrong (“cool girls don’t go to the party / don’t do what anyones asks of me”). ‘faceback’ is a slow and dreamy rumination on expectations and life goals. A barely two-minute lo-fi pop song, it somehow captures the uncertain and rebellious feeling of the (relatively) young in the first quarter of the 21st Century, that strange paradox of terror/anxiety and a bold refusal to settle for the “norms” that we’re pressured to pursue.
“get a house get a car get a job it’s all done
do we act just like our moms?
maybe this time talk for once”
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‘patient now’ strips things back to the bones, what’s basically a folk song on plucked guitar strings and fragile vocals, and ‘supposed 2 do’ swims in a soup of candy-sweet effects and lo-fi guitar, before the release ends on a cover of Future’s ‘i be U’. This little collection contains the kind of songs we’re going to need more of if the world continues in the direction it’s headed. The title alone makes me want to share it with people, a motto that should be taught to every teen in every school worldwide.
You can get be kind be careful be yourself as a name-your-price download from the girl valley Bandcamp page.