Back in 2022 we wrote about Midnite Heart Attack, an album by Rachel Angel which saw the Miami songwriter wrestle with themes of identity and mortality after a moment of dire epiphany. One of those occasions where the choice is made plain—you can change or die. With a country-inflected style, Angel wrote a collection of songs hinging on this moment, not only charting the shock of a sudden reckoning but also the long tail of its aftermath. Songs “all about moving on from uncertainty and longing [which possess] a certain self-awareness,” as we wrote. “As though understanding change to be something other than linear. No epiphany can be total, some of the past’s worries will always remain.”
Rachel Angel’s new single ‘Deep in the Sun’ builds upon the foundations of this record, pulling in different stylistic influences to nudge the sound towards an almost trip-hop vibe. Produced by Brian McTear and Amy Morrissey, the song drills deeper into the dramatic core of Angel’s work, pairing poetic lyrics with a newfound sense of scale and scope. “The symptom of love / Turned me back inward,” she sings as the track simmers to life, “I’m shocked full of love / Screamed with my might / That I’m only god’s child / I’m only his son.” Lines delivered with a closeness that stays true across the track, the intimacy of the vocals the through-line, and the size and weight of the sound more implied than shouted aloud.
Rachel Angel has also unveiled another single ‘Bottom Seas’, a song again produced by McTear and Morrissey for Weathervane Music’s Open Sessions documentary recording series (which has featured a plethora of the best songwriters across the years). Using a strange dream as a way in, the song explores ideas of loneliness and loss in the wake of the death of a parent. The result lands somewhere adjacent to the ramshackle, idiosyncratic spirit of Neutral Milk Hotel, possessing the same impassioned, heartfelt energy that drives the sound forward.
‘Deep in the Sun’ is out now and available from the Rachel Angel Bandcamp page.