3/31/2021

CLAIRE GEORGE Announces Debut Album, Shares Lead Single & Video

CLAIRE GEORGE
ANNOUNCES DEBUT ALBUM & SHARES LEAD SINGLE

LISTEN/WATCH:

The Land Beyond The Light out May 21st on Cascine
photo credit: Kkanvas 
 
Early praise for Claire George: 
 
“[‘Orbits’] seems to send her voice hurtling through space, but for all its dreamy wonder and celestial wordplay, it stays tethered to this world through kind devotion.” - NPR Music
 
["Orbits" is] a lonely ghost of a pop song that drips and melts with molasses synths and lazy buzzing drum machines. Her sinewy vocals stay mostly to an aching whisper, but occasionally reveal powerful, Lorde-like creases, tripping out the song’s slo-mo atmosphere further with a muted background vocal loop." - Stereogum
 
“Claire George makes quite the auspicious introduction with the...wistfully bittersweet [‘Orbits’]” - Gorilla vs. Bear
 
“Cascine continues to have a superb ear for indie pop gems and Claire George might be the most promising signee yet...heavenly...an immersive soundscape held together by haunting vocals, swelling production, and healing words” - Highsnobiety
 
"The synth pop artist asks a painful question in this dreamy, languid track from her debut EP" - Resident Advisor
 
“This is one to watch no doubt.” - Paste

Los Angeles-based artist Claire George released her stunning self-produced and self-written debut EP via Cascine three years ago to critical acclaim, and today she is back with the long-awaited announcement of her debut full-length album. While 2018’s Bodies of Water EP -- which earned support from the likes of NPR Music, Pitchfork, Stereogum, Gorilla vs. Bear, Highsnobiety, Refinery29 and more -- was notable for its wide-eyed celestial synth-pop, The Land Beyond the Light, delves deeper into George’s swath of dance and pop influences. The album was initially inspired by a 2019 heartbreak, but the tone and tenor of the writing process changed when George suddenly lost her friend, an ex-boyfriend, to substance abuse. The loss of this significant person in her life left George to reckon with questions of addiction and grief, while exploring new sonic vocabularies in which to house them. The result is an achingly human document of life; an album in turns ecstatic and elegiac. 

Pre-order The Land Beyond The Light, out May 21st on CascineHERE

To celebrate the album announcement, Claire George shares the first single off of The Land Beyond The Light. The syncopated and pulsing “Pink Elephants” finds George acknowledging her own struggles with substance abuse, as she sings, “I don’t blame you, I know how it feels / with tusk and teeth gnawing at your heels.” “The ‘Pink Elephants’ video is an expression of my desperation to save someone who I loved and lost to addiction,” George explains. “The storyline is meant to depict the lengths to which one will go when they see a loved one losing a battle with substance abuse, but how ultimately, it can be heartbreakingly impossible to catch someone who is already so far gone.” Listen to the song and check out the music video HERE.
Claire George - Pink Elephants [OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO]

 
The Land Beyond The Light Tracklist:
 
1. You Don’t Feel the Same 
2. I Promise
3. Pink Elephants
4. Medellín
5. Northern Lights
6. Nosebleed Seats 
7. Islands
8. Bag of Peaches
9. Particles in Motion 
 
 
More on Claire George and The Land Beyond The Light:

How do we cope with the gulf between us and those we’ve lost? On The Land Beyond The Light, the debut full-length album by Claire George, the Los-Angeles artist aims to answer that question. The Land Beyond The Light was initially conceived as a break-up record, largely inspired by a tough split Claire was going through in late 2019. She wrote the album opener “You Don’t Feel The Same” in the immediate aftermath, charting a course for a record channeling her feelings about the dissolution of relationships. “When that relationship fell apart, I felt really angry,” Claire says. “As I set out to write this album, I envisioned it being much harsher, being fresh off of the break-up.”
 
The writing process shifted, however, in the wake of another personal tragedy: the death of one of Claire’s close friends, an ex-boyfriend, as a result of substance abuse. “Everything changed when he passed away,” she says. When Claire returned to the songs she had written for the album, they took on a new meaning filtered through her grief. “So many of the songs, whether they were about him when I first wrote them or not, are about him now. And this record is for him.” 

One of the tragedies of addiction is that it can make us feel lost to those who are suffering, even before they’re gone. “Most of these songs express the desperation of wanting to help someone you love, but who you cannot possibly save from themselves,” Claire explains. “There is this thread of desperately wanting someone to break free from their afflictions, and the heartbreak associated with knowing you cannot change someone.” 

Claire’s writing process coincided with her grieving process, and the spirit of her late friend was stamped indelibly onto the album: memories of their relationship, imagined what-if scenarios, her competing feelings of gratitude and grief. The result is a stunning and multi-layered collection of songs that marvels at life and the beauty of the world around us, even in its most tragic moments. 

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