Clever Girls recently unveiled a brand new single from the album. Titled ‘Baby Blue’, the song dials back the raucous bite of ‘Spark’ in favour of raw sentiment. Jean says it’s “about the absolute euphoria that occurs when love and emotional safety are reciprocated in the face of loneliness,” and the track glides effortlessly between a sense of solitude and one of connection. Subtle guitars sparkle and swirl like thoughts in the quiet of an empty room, while the beat that kicks in after the chorus sounds uncannily like the intimate thump of a human pulse.

‘Baby Blue’ was initially written three years ago, but wasn’t recorded until early 2020. It has since taken on renewed meaning, recalling what Jean describes as “the darkest days of the pandemic” in the spring of 2020. “I spent all of May, while Vermont was still very much on lockdown, in complete isolation with the exception of my cat,” they explain. “It was exactly the type of experience that the song was born out of in the first place—feeling isolated, and cut off from the world even when it was still turning—if not on fire—outside of my door.”

Constellations is out on 20th February on Egghunt Records and you can pre-order it now from the Clever Girls Bandcamp page.

Cover photo by Kay Dargin

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Titled ‘Spark’, the song feels like an evolution for Clever Girls, meatier indie rock elements adding a raw directness to the dreamy emoti-pop of previous songs. The verses sit in lulls between bursts of big guitars and crashing drums, Jean’s vocals at times soft and unassuming but always edged with something darker. As the title suggests, the song uses the imagery of starting a fire to explore similarly destructive and purging phenomena in our lives.

Therefore, ‘Spark’ might have all the emotion of previous Clever Girls songs, but there’s a sense of violence that’s new. Images of gasoline and fights and buried teeth sit next to vulnerable sentiment, a juxtaposition that is perhaps best illustrated in a line near the beginning. “And this hallway stinks like piss,” Jean sings, in a moment that mixes grimy reality with something tender, “but I still feel her fingertips pressed against my lips.”

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