In recent weeks we’ve covered a number of singles from Patience, the forthcoming album from New York songwriter Devin Shaffer. A record which signals a pivot away from the emotional arc of predecessor In My Dreams I’m There, which saw Shaffer move from confusion and hesitancy towards a sense of acceptance, to instead interrogate what it might take to achieve lasting peace. “That is,” we wrote in a preview, “to reject the idea of a neat arc entirely, resist the temptation to believe one achievement or epiphany will solve your life for good. The songs of her debut sound like Shaffer battling against the noise of the world in search of an answer, but in dropping this ambient backdrop, Patience ceases the fight. Submits to the messiness of our interiors and indeed the wider world.”
Lead single ‘All My Dreams Are Coming True’ represented “a clear example of the subtle power of the new arrangement,” we continued, “Devin Shaffer’s vocals and guitar […] front and centre, the accompanying instrumentation not so much embellishing the sound as working to hold up its key elements,” as well as a taste of a nuanced style of writing born of “her willingness to embrace what might seem contradictory moods simultaneously.” Then ‘I Guess I’m Crawling‘ surrendered to the limitations, disappointments and frustrations, “the record’s penultimate track and perhaps its most illustrative one,” as we put it, “its gentle pace and soft tone confronting all of life’s doubts and injustices with a steady patience.”
With the album’s release a little over a week away, Shaffer has returned with new track ‘Anyone’. Joined by Sarah Galdes (drums) and Lucy Liyou (piano), the song sees Shaffer conjure something of a counterpoint to the rest of the album, its atmosphere leavened and light. As though within the process of submission that is Patience, Shaffer stumbled upon a small epiphany. A fleeting moment where there is only the present and everything feels good and right. One perhaps all the more precious for its ephemeral nature. Something to be grasped while it shows itself, then longed for during the late hours of the night. “Most of my music reflects indecision, fantasy, conflict, obsession with elsewhere… I really live in that limbo,” Shaffer explains. “It can be paralyzing. ‘Anyone’ is like the antithesis of all that. It’s me saying, I know exactly what I want this time and nobody can stop me. This song is so joyous and hopeful, it actually breaks my heart to listen to, because nothing is permanent. It makes me think about the way the sky turns sort of yellow and glows really beautifully right before a storm.”
Patience will be released via American Dreams on 7th November. Pre-order it now from the Devin Shaffer Bandcamp page.
Photo by Ash Dye