This month sees the release of Only Yesterday, an EP exploring the self-doubt that often stems from failed relationships, as well as the possibility of love outside of traditional romance. Lead single ‘Marching Song’ provides more than a glimpse into his stirring, urgent style. While the track is very much from the classic folk stable, built from the modest foundations of acoustic guitar and strong songwriting, Heltai is joined by a number of friends who provide extra layers to his sound, elevating the track into a triumphant strand of wistfulness.

Today we’re pleased to share a brand new single ahead of the EP’s release. ‘Stuck in Stone’ is Americana in all of its whiskey-smoked glory, built from the kind of elated melancholy that has driven folks singers ever since the first guitar was strung. Despite the title, impermanence is again a key theme, love and health presented as unstable, fragile things to be cherished and chased.

Only Yesterday is out on the 19th April and you can pre-order it now from the Izzy Heltai Bandcamp page.

Photograph by Emma Kate Rothenberg-Ware, album art by Molly Howarth

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As we wrote in our previous review, Mal Devisa’s music defies any one genre, instead favouring an organic oscillation between folk, pop, soul and hip-hop, and Kiid is a case in point. ‘Fire’ opens with gentle strummed guitar, Devisa’s vocals carrying things along with thoughts on anxieties and hopes for relief. As the track progresses the vocals grow in fervour, the instrumentation creaking at the seams before unravelling into noise.

“Fire in my brain
will you make it okay?

Does it kill you to know that we’re all dying?
It kills me to know”.

In an album that switches between genre so readily, it is Carr’s lyrics which act as the binding force. ‘In My Neighbourhood’ sees the first hip-hop crossed with pop to create something like tUnE-yArdS, ‘Everyone Knows’ is a near-jazzy number where Carr’s voice takes centre stage, and ‘Live Again’ is an indie folk croon akin to the older Cold Specks releases, though all are linked by the sincere, probing writing and startling vocal range. ‘FAT’ opens with heavy bass and descends into urgent, frenzied verses, only to segue into the sombre, soulful ‘Sea of Limbs’ tracks. Both the intro and the main track see Devisa stretch her vocals to their limits, flickering from breathy whispers to wide, top-of-the-lungs gospel songs that would fill any room. The open heart is matched in the lyrics too, with the main message stated with stirring forthrightness.

“You were solid,
you’re everything they told you could not be and more.
You were solid”

‘Daisy’ is a short, evocative pop song that smoulders along with a solid beat (“Oh Daisy, Daisy, I have seen too much of you / You’re driving me crazy with that bad attitude”), while ‘Forget That I’ is a slow piano ballad which ebbs and flows, falling somewhere between Sharon van Etten and Nina Simone. Closer ‘Dominatrix’ switches the mood again, a frenetic hip-hop song like performance poetry where the mood has been condensed into loops and played behind. The track finds Devisa at her most angry and assured, confident in the truth behind her attack on the white, patriarchal grip on culture.

“Messing around I wrote a masterpiece
enough apologies I got caught up in my dreams.
Now I go by Mal Devisa,
avid rapper she’s a preacher
a non-conformist, non-believer”

Kiid is a personal record and plays like condensed version of life, reaching high and falling low, crackling and bursting and simmering under the surface, at times exploding in urgent streams of consciousness as if the words and thoughts can no longer be held in. This is an album that refuses to be reduced to something easily describable, persevering in it’s complexity against the binarizing forces of anxiety or genre or gender or race. Kiid isn’t a self-doubt record or political record, nor a sad record or a happy record. It’s not jazz or gospel or indie rock. Kiid is everything. Kiid is whatever it wants to be.

You can buy Kiid now from the Mal Devisa Bandcamp page, and Mal Devisa compilation cassette from the DZ Tapes Bandcamp page.

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RIYL: Fiona Apple, Cold Specks, genre-bending folk

Favourite Tracks:

You can buy 4U right now from Mal Devisa’s Bandcamp page, along with a few other bits and pieces.

P.S. Devisa also records as MAL, which is another direction entirely. Listen below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV6GWUHEBSY

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