TRACK REVIEW: Snail Mail - Mia — Music Musings & Such

TRACK REVIEW:

Snail Mail

PHOTO CREDIT: Matthew Salacuse

Mia

9.8/10

The track, Mia, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx4vvTgsbuI

The album, Valentine, is available here:

https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/snail-mail/valentine

ORIGIN:

Maryland, U.S.A.

RELEASE DATE:

5th November, 2021

GENRE:

Indie-Rock

PRODUCERS:

Brad Cook/Snail Mail

LABEL:

Matador

__________

ONE of the best albums of this year…

PHOTO CREDIT: Audrey Melton

came out on Friday. Snail Mail’s Valentine is s superb album from Lindsey Jordan. I am going to come to a review of a song from that album very soon. Prior to that, there are some interviews I want to bring in, as Snail Mail’s Jordan is a compelling artist who warrants closer inspection. The first interview is from The New York Times. We discover when Snail Mail (I shall refer to her as such now, rather than Lindsey Jordan) was struck and compelled by music:

“Ms. Jordan has been playing guitar for 13 years, making her the odd woman out in her nonmusical, but very supportive, family. Her mother, who shares Ms. Jordan’s fascination with fashion, owns a lingerie store called Bra-la-la; her father works for a company that provides textbooks and curriculum for home-school programs; and her older sister is an outdoorswoman. But the artists her mother listened to (Coldplay, the Fray, Lifehouse) and her sister favored (angsty, harder-edged Warped Tour bands) shaped Ms. Jordan’s earliest musical memories. Until she heard Paramore, she said, “I actually didn’t know women were allowed in bands.”

She asked for a guitar when she was 5 and started classical training, forcing herself to practice two hours a day. “It’s an obsessive personality trait,” she said. “My parents were never like, ‘Go practice.’ I was just like, ‘I have to practice.’” She brought a similarly fervent work ethic to ice hockey, which she played through high school.

PHOTO CREDIT: Rinse Fokkema

When Ms. Jordan started attending a rock ’n’ roll camp, her passion became a competition, dulling her interest. “I was like, oh, now I have to learn ‘Cliffs of Dover,’” she said, referring to the Eric Johnson noodle-a-thon often heard in the aisles of Guitar Center. At 9, she began playing at sports bars in her parents’ friends’ cover band, the Eight Balls. Around 11, her spark for the guitar returned in earnest, and she starting writing songs, emailing the owners of restaurants and coffee shops to book her own sets. Then she discovered the D.I.Y. punk scene and didn’t want to play coffee shops anymore.

Precocious and social, Ms. Jordan had a wide network outside of school. Another local musician encouraged her to perform at Unregistered Nurse, a Baltimore punk festival, and before long she was sharing the same stage as Screaming Females and Sheer Mag, recording an EP with the Washington band Priests and building buzz. “Habit,” six loose, lo-fi songs released in 2016, included “Slug,” an especially astute meditation on helplessness and identity that empathizes with the garden mollusk. (Snail Mail is now a trio that includes Alex Bass on bass and Ray Brown on drums.)”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Matthew Salacuse

Her debut album, Lush, was released in 2018. Prior to that, she released the E.P., Habit (which came out in 2016). DIY caught up with Snail Mail early in 2018. They talked to her about the upcoming debut album. At that point, the album was untitled. Little did we know that we were going to get this remarkable debut from the Maryland-born artist:

“Some of the songs are aggressively sad, and others are just…shrug emoji,” she laughs through a yawn - which she immediately apologises for - speaking of her upcoming full-length record, her first on Matador and the follow-up to 2016 EP ‘Habit’.

Written over a number of years, and tracking the teenage years of the now-19 year-old, the as-yet-untitled record predictably travels through many transitional states, and it’s self-described as a bit of an emotional mess. “It’s really noticeable,” the singer begins, the day before her debut UK show, playing solo at the capital’s Lexington. “It’s written across a very transformative time in my life, and there’s a lot of different viewpoints, be it on relationships, or whatever’s going on in my life. The writing process started out being a very pathetic ‘Why don’t you love me?!’ but got to the point where it was more ‘Love me or not, I’m a busy, independent person’,” she continues, letting out another giggle.

“I guess it's necessary to develop your feelings on things, but the record is gonna come out and everyone's gonna think 'well, how do you feel about these things?' Every single song is a completely different stage of my life”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Benedict Evans

One of the biggest and most important steps in Snail Mails career was when she signed to Matador. At that point, Snail Mail were a three-piece band - Lindsey Jordan – vocals, guitar, Ray Brown – drums, Alex Bass – bass -, but the music and sound was synonymous with the Jordan. On Valentine, she is even more at the centre and fore. When promoting Lush, Vice chatted with the lead about their career arc and getting to the stage of putting out a much-anticipated album:

“There are lots of ways that I could introduce this interview with Lindsey Jordan, who leads the indie rock band Snail Mail. I could say that Lindsey Jordan is an 18-year-old musical prodigy from Ellicott City, Maryland, USA. Or I could tell you that Lindsey Jordan is blazing a trail for young women in music. But if I went with either of those things, I think I would be doing Lindsey Jordan a disservice. Not because they aren’t true—they very much are—but just because they feel like lazy ways to describe someone so interesting. So instead, I will simply say this: Lindsey Jordan is fucking cool.

In 2016, her name started appearing in the blogosphere’s general consciousness when she released the six-track EP Habit with Snail Mail, the band for which she’s been the frontperson and primary songwriter since she was 15. Habit is, by anyone’s admission, a striking piece of work: candidly emotional, with a propensity for analysing short moments in time, and endowing them with a sometimes crushing wider significance. On “Slug,” she turns spotting a slug in her garden into a meditation on her own feeling of stillness; on the standout “Thinning” (below), she makes losing weight due to illness a metaphor for her emotional state. It’s all hemmed in by Lindsey’s obvious ear for melody and gritty voice, while her technical proficiency as a guitarist and songwriter is balanced out by a fuzzy, lo-fi sensibility. It rules.

Fast-forward to now, and Snail Mail are signed to Matador Records. They’ve also recorded their debut album, which I am, after speaking to Lindsey, loudly confident will be some of the most exciting guitar music to emerge in quite a while (if the skills she displays on Habit and, later, on an Audiotree session are anything to go on). We met downstairs at venue and bar The Lexington in north London, when, hiding her blonde hair beneath a black baseball cap (which I later notice is emblazoned with the words “Sea Lice,” and therefore recognize as merch from the recent joint tour by her fellow shredders Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett), she plonked down in front of me in a booth. Later that evening, she’d play her first UK show upstairs—a stripped-down solo set—to rapturous reception from a crowd who clearly view her as the most holy future of rock music. I don’t think they’re wrong”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Grayson Vaughan

At the time of 2018, of course there was a lot of interest around Snail Mail’s lead. Lindsey Jordan was part of a wave of strong and compelling women – that also included Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker. Going back to that Vice interview, Snail Mail was asked about releasing an album as part of this scene of inspiring young women coming through:

“Noisey: Hey Lindsey. Let’s get to it: the way I see it, you’re part of a wave of young female songwriters-guitarists on the rise now—Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, Sophie [Allison, of Soccer Mommy]. How does it feel to be making a record in the midst of that?

Lindsey: It’s weird because my band are all guys. And I know for a fact that like, most of the bands that we’re playing with are men. But it’s interesting because I know we’re in that wave of women playing music but it still feels like I’m surrounded by men all the time. And it’s out there, but it hasn’t really come to me that much. But it’s so sick to be surrounded by, and it’s totally inspirational, and most of my friends are women in bands and it’s fucking awesome. I think that we’re on an upward slope, but we’re not there yet.

I think a lot of the issues for women in music come from all sides, including critics. Do you find you get pigeonholed?

Yeah I get pigeonholed, and just a lot of attention, I think, because I’m a woman. Which sucks because though a lot of my favourite guitarists are women—like Marnie Stern and Mary Timony and stuff—also a lot of them are men. A lot of my inspirations and friends are men. So it is great to represent women in music, but also it sucks to not necessarily always be grouped with male guitar players—Kurt Vile and Steve Gunn and Mark Kozelek, all these fucking shredders. It would be cool to be grouped in with them more too. But at the same time I’m so glad that we have all these women coming to the forefront. It’s sweet. And people should care! But I wish they cared because everyone was a good guitar player, not because they’re women”.

I was interested knowing more about the voice behind Snail Mail and her musical inspirations. When listening to the music, one might pick up on a few names (some artists that the band/Jordan draws from). NME spoke with our heroine last month about musicians that she connected with when she was younger:

“Jordan doesn’t remember seeing many indie musicians she related to in childhood or adolescence. She was a huge fan of Warped Tour staples and pop-punk bands like All Time Low, but the genre also seemed dominated by “straight white men”. But seeing Paramore live, fronted by Hayley Williams, was a lightbulb moment.

“I distinctly remember thinking: that’s so cool!” she enthuses. “After that I was like, I love Paramore, and I still love Paramore that much,” she adds. “I went through a really big phase with ‘After Laughter’ when that came out – I have full trust in that woman. I remember discovering [2009 album] ‘Actor’ by St. Vincent, and being like, this is fucking cool. I also remember being 13 or 14 when [Lana Del Rey’s] ‘Born To Die’ came out, and I was obsessed.” Jordan laughs: “I was like, ‘Have you guys heard this woman invented music?’”

Another of Jordan’s idols is Chicago legend Liz Phair, whose 1993 debut album ‘Exile In Guyville’ thrust her into the spotlight overnight following its release. Though they only rehearsed together a couple of times, Jordan was once in a tribute band called Lizard Phair, and the pair finally met for the first time three years ago. When I spoke with Phair earlier this year, shortly before she released her first album in a decade, she told me that her return was directly inspired by witnessing a new generation of inventive indie-rock largely led by women and queer musicians.

“I would go so far as to say they pulled me out of retirement,” Phair said. “This group of young women just made it feel like the music business should’ve been when I was coming up. To have supportive, understanding, like-minded people would’ve made a huge difference. I feel like I’ve lived my entire career on the defensive – all the time”.

One interesting aspect I came across when researching was the relationship Snail Mail’s fans have with the songs. The Cut highlighted Snail Mail in 2018. It is curious learning of her reaction to the way in which some fans latch onto and become almost obsessed with certain songs:

“Even when an artist exerts as much control as Jordan does in the studio, she still can’t determine the intense way fans will latch onto them. She shrugs: “I guess there’s space between me and what I’m writing about that kind of allows for people to add their own context.” She says it with a nonchalance, like the space means she doesn’t care. But it seems that part of her discomfort with people filling up her music with their own context is that she isn’t quite done feeling it yet herself. In every one of her songs, there’s a moment where her voice kind of catches and she sounds like she might cry. She grabs her guitar and plays me some of the moments — on “Pristine,” it’s when she hits the pre-outro and wails, “Out of everyone / who is your type of girl?”

“I have days where I don’t feel like I can get through a certain song,” she says. “They are so heavy and refine such true, up-close things. Sometimes we just won’t play a song, because I’m like, I can’t, and other times when I’m playing it, I’m like” — here she inhales sharply and closes her eyes, as if she’s just barely holding it together”.

There are a few things that I want to cross off of the list before I get to a review. Snail Mail moved to New York last year. I think that artists relocating can impact their lyrics and the way they work. NME’s interview covered how Snail Mail moved to New York. It is interesting seeing how the city differs to her hometown back in Ellicott City:

“In December last year, Lindsey Jordan moved into her own place in New York’s East Village – behind her, a handful of posters pepper the walls, and guitars line the path to the kitchen. When ‘Valentine’ comes out in November, the musician is treating herself to a new rug, and has been learning to cook – lately, she’s mastered steak, gnocchi, and a series of air-fried goods. And for a good chunk of last year, she was in her childhood home, spending lockdown at her parents’ back in Baltimore. While there, she enjoyed the relative anonymity of her hometown.

“People in Ellicott City leave me alone more than any place,” she says, “I don’t feel like there are a lot of indie rock listeners around. I’m good, I’m chill. I feel like it’s a lot more hectic in New York”.

Sticking with the NME interview, and one thing I have not raised so far is Jordan’s (I should actually refer to her by name when talking about this subject) addiction issues and her time in rehab. It is something that is worth reading about when we think about her path to now. There is a lyric from Ben Franklin – a single from Valentine – that refers to her time in rehab:

“When I left rehab, I was like, ‘There’s no way I’m going to talk about this, and there’s no way I’m going to write about it, ’cause it’s nobody’s business,” Jordan says today, “but when I was writing that song… I was like, I don’t really want to write about crushing sadness in a melodramatic way like I usually do. I want to talk about things in a way that’s almost casually throwing some crazy shit out into the mix. I was sitting there with my notebook, and I was like, ‘I’m going to do it.’ At the time, I still didn’t have most of the album so I was like: ‘That’s future me’s problem’.”

Present-day Jordan, she admits, has been struggling with talking about that lyric in particular as she values keeping healthy boundaries: “My life got really complicated and hard within the last year or two, and being like ‘Here it all is for everyone to have an opinion on’ became less of an option for me. ‘Here it all is’ means something different for me now. It means, ‘Here’s what I’m willing to give, and the rest is for me and my personal life. Otherwise I’m gonna feel like a performing clown who’s naked. I want to come home to stuff that other people don’t have access to.

“It’s hard. A lot of people in my life are like, ‘Oh, you did that – you put that in the song, huh?’ It’s not necessarily something I want to advertise about myself, but I kind of just… couldn’t really help it. It was such a monumental thing for me, and such a monumental switch-around. My personality is different now, for better in a lot of ways, but also… that kind of thing is its own trauma, you know? It’s really life-altering and I couldn’t ignore how that affected my music and me, and how I think about things.”

When Jordan needed to take some time to focus on her mental health, her team took it “really seriously”, and she backs the idea of labels actively pointing artists towards the specific resources and organisations out there who can help”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Benedict Evans

One can tell how there has been a development of the Snail Mail sound. More expansive and emotionally different to Lush, Valentine is a revelation! If you have not heard the album, I can thoroughly recommend it. Pitchfork interviewed Snail Mail about Valentine. We get to discover how there is a poignancy that runs through the music of Snail Mail/Valentine:

“Produced by Jordan and indie vet Brad Cook, the new record pushes beyond the wistful rock of her 2018 debut, Lush. The first half of Valentine, Jordan explains, is “almost fun,” led by the title track, a soaring guitar anthem in the lineage of her faves Paramore. Side A also includes “Forever (Sailing),” a hallucinogenic ballad that could slip into a bizarro yacht-rock compilation and “Ben Franklin,” a surprisingly synth-forward track about trying to feign apathy in the face of breakup. When asked about that song’s blasé lines like, “Got money, I don’t care about sex,” Jordan explains with a chuckle that they are purely aspirational: “I really wish I could be that character, but I’m not.”

The album’s second half is “when the party’s over and I’m drunk and alone,” as envisioned quite literally on the last-call rocker “Automate.” As Valentine winds down, Jordan begins to realize that chaining yourself to love comes at a dark price, and there isn’t much fulfillment to be found in the scenes of excess depicted on the slinky “Madonna” and escapist fantasy “Glory.” But all the while, Jordan’s self-awareness is as sharp as ever. “Doesn’t obsession just become me?” she asks at one point on the album, poking fun at her readiness to dive headfirst into a relationship. “I’m the least apathetic person in the world,” Jordan says. “It’s almost a joke.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Emma Swann

As her music suggests, Jordan is an expressive person. She speaks with a throaty drawl, throwing in the occasional “dude” or “sick” for emphasis. Later, as we cruise around the nearby Tompkins Square Park, she practically does an entire reenactment of a recent encounter with her favorite Instagram-famous dog, Bertram the Pomeranian: With a green juice in one hand and a black coffee in the other, Jordan pantomimes her excitement over spotting the dog and then her melodramatic, wilted dejection as he trotted away. Apparently, on that particular day, Bertram was a busy boy and could not stop for an adoring fan. (But the dog gods were on her side: The day after our interview, Jordan ran into Bertram again; this time, plenty of pets ensued.)

For all of her youthful exuberance, there is also a poignant seriousness to Jordan and her music. On Valentine, she sings of seeking refuge in substances and a stint in rehab. When I bring up the topic, the color drains from Jordan’s face as her voice stiffens and she retreats within herself. For the only time all afternoon, she starts to stumble over her words and asks if we can take a break. As hurricane clouds gather in the distance outside her apartment, Jordan politely declines to get into some specifics of her experience but doesn’t shut down. Talking about why she decided to sing about rehab on the album at all, she puts it simply, “I’m already sort of naked so I might as well get completely naked, because the truth is going to come out eventually”.

I will stay with Valentine and how there has been this improvement and maturation. The Forty-Five spotlighted Snail Mail recently. With the passing of time and more experiences under her belt, it is inevitable that Valentine would be a richer and wiser record (compared to Lush):

“Now at 22 – older, wiser, and a few more heartbreaks down – things are different. For one, Jordan’s lyrics are even more deeply considered and she scatters female pronouns throughout ‘Valentine’ (“she kissed like she meant it”), now unafraid of people knowing she’s gay, but the bigger platform also presents fresh challenges: “There’s always a fear that people will know; that the person you’re singing about is going to be like, ‘hold up!’ Sometimes you have to weigh up: is it the art or the personal life?”

“It’s kind of unfair to everyone else because I get the final say! Sometimes having the final say isn’t even appropriate. Sometimes it’s not warranted or necessary or cute. I want to be respectful to my subjects and keep people in my life so songwriting is always a decision-making process.” With increased scrutiny comes increased responsibility.

For Jordan, the difference between the two albums is one of emotional maturity as well as musical maturity – a metaphorical and literal leap from kid to adult, documented in the public eye. It’s become a choice of when not to confess.

“As a person, it’s really hard for me to not put it all out there all the time. Obviously, that’s great – sincerity is cool, you know – but I also think my perspective on love has changed so much. It’s much less romantic now that I’m experiencing healthy love in my life. It’d be weird if I was 30 and still singing, ‘I’ll never love anyone else,’ but at the same time, I still have a good amount of that inside.”

When committed to music, that good amount of unabashed romanticism still hits like before – “The first time I met you I knew then / That afterwards there’d be no in between,” Jordan croons on the delicately plucked acoustic track ‘Light Blue’, written for an ex-girlfriend who broke up with her the next day. “It’s okay,” she says, abiding by the cardinal rule of queerness. “We’re still friends”.

Prior to addressing a song from Valentine that I especially love, I want to focus on the lyrical themes of the album. That brings me back to the Pitchfork interview. Alongside something more light-hearted are songs and lines that address death and spirituality:

“There are a few really heavy moments on the album, like on “Headlock” when you sing, “Thought I’d see her when I died/Filled the bath up with warm water/Nothing on the other side.” Can you tell me more about those lines?

I’m a deeply sensitive person, and the idea of going all the way down into the pitch darkness and messing with those possibilities is liberating. To be able to talk about it and come out the other side is, to me, the ultimate form of recovery and growth. So that song let me go as dark as I possibly could so I could come out on the other side.

Your lyrics feel so intentional. I particularly love the moment on “Madonna” where you sing, “I consecrate my life to kneeling at your altar/My second sin of seven being: wanting more.” That’s a mouthful! How intensely do you finesse your writing?

I edit my lyrics over and over until I’m 100 percent sure that everything feels right. It’s perfectionism, in a pull-my-hair-out type of way. On this album, it was really important to me that certain lines hit in certain places in the song. If something repeats, it’s absolutely for a reason—like on “Automate,” when I say, “I’m like your dog” twice.

All of the vocal deliveries are super intentional too. There’s certain parts that when you sing them soft, it hurts more, or things that when you sing them with projection or a little more rasp, it’s emotional in a different way. It’s theatrical as hell.

“Madonna” also contains a lot of references to religion. Are you a spiritual person?

My family weren’t extremely devout Catholics, but we went to church most Sundays when I was growing up. My parents wanted to instill those morals in me. As complicated as it has made some things, I’m also grateful for that education”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Lavine

The last thing that I want to cover before doing a song review takes me to an interview with NYLON. They spoke with Snail Mail about promoting the new album. It must have been hard getting back into promotional mode during a pandemic. They asked why there has been a bit of a delay getting Valentine out:

“Have you felt pressure to get back to posting regularly on social media because you have the new album to promote?

It's like a never-ending conversation, whether I should be posting it today. And I think I'm pushed towards only posting when it's necessary, or like if I'm really feeling myself in a picture or something. Having nothing but social media to be out and about during the last year I felt a little over-exposed and over-saturated with Snail Mail content, even though there was none.

I was so about it, and then I just took a step back and realized that there is an unconscious need to be all over the internet and stuff. It's almost a marketing [tactic], Instagram and stuff like that. I started to realize that forming connections that way with fans and stuff, it's just a performance connection. And I just said, "F*ck that, it's weird." If I'm going to connect with people on any level, I would rather feel like it's genuine. Not to be like, "We live in a society" but we are in a weirder position, societally, than I think anybody even realizes. Like, when you take a step back, it's like all faking showing our real selves on the internet, to get people to feel close to us. It's kind of manipulative.

You finished the album way back in February, but it’s just now coming out. What was that waiting period like for you?

I heard whispers of there only being one vinyl plant in the entire world left, and so like, it's like a line that you have to wait in to get your stuff pressed. That’s the real reason. But It's been nice to have time to get my sh*t together. Sometimes you turn something in, and then you have to churn it out. Having that time was ultimately a good thing, because I really do feel like in order to do a record cycle, your sh*t just has to be unbelievably together. I don't think you can be struggling with anything, really.

How does that mindset apply to tour? Are you looking forward to it?

I'm really excited. we're really tight as a unit right now. We've been practicing for months, and months, and months for sessions and stuff that we've got to do. We have a bus now, which is really cool. It’s just a bigger production. there's more band members, there's a big crew. I haven't felt like myself in that way in such a long time, and I'm really excited to see how different it'll be from the last tour. I’m a lot more responsible.

Do you think all this want for bigger production and the like come from the want to show people you’re no longer that teenager they first were introduced to?

There is something so fun about being a teenagerr. I had this attitude that I was like, "Look at all these label people, look at all these business people. Who cares, I'm going to get super drunk at the company party." And now, to not look at a hot mess, to not be drunk at the company party…. I definitely am not jumping at any opportunities that make me look immature, to not look messy. It's so weird how it shifts”

PHOTO CREDIT: Benedict Evans

Mia is a song that I wanted to highlight, as it is very lush, beautiful and memorable. One of the standout cuts from Valentine, it showcases the rich and emotive vocals of Lindsey Jordan. The lyrics are among the most affecting on Valentine. The first verse is performed so softly and beautifully: “Isn't it strange the way it's just over?/No late night calls/You're not here to walk me to my door/Now I just love you more/Mia, don't cry, I love you forever/But I gotta grow up now/No, I can't keep holding onto you anymore/Mia, I'm still yours”. I wonder whether Mia is the name of our heroine’s lover. It seems like there is a lot of pure affection and adoration coming from the song. Clearly someone who has made a huge impression on the songwriter, one can hear and feel the sense of entrance and affection that emanates from the delicate guitar strings. We get shimmering and evocative strings that stir the senses and add a sense of rapture and lust to the song. As a songwriter and observer of love and its intricacies and complexities, there are few as accomplished as Snail Mail. My favourite passage came in the form of these lines: “Lost love so strange/And heaven's not real, babe/But I wish that I/Could lay down next to you”. At every stage of Mia, one imagines Snail Mail’s remarkable lead closing her eyes and imagining the scenes that she is singing. So powerful and moving is the song, it is small wonder what many people highlighted the song as a standout from Valentine. It is incredibly inspired and compelling. The sound of the composition and the vocal almost reminded me of Jazz icons from the 1950s and 1960s. The likes of Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald, perhaps. Reminiscent of one of those classic standards, Mia is a song one can – and willingly does – lose themselves in.

PHOTO CREDIT: Matthew Salacuse

Bringing together everything I have highlighted and talked about so far, I notice the evolution from Lush and how the music and production has grown stronger and more amazing. I feel the lyrics are also more striking and outstanding. Mixing poetry and something directly personal and urgent, there is so much to adore about Mia. The words provoke images and get into the heart: “Fixing your hair on the way to his place off of Broadway and 9th/If you're waking up slow together/And talking through the night/I'll bet he feels so fucking light”. So elegant, graceful and sophisticated, I love how there is this feeling of the classic, vintage and otherworldly about Mia. I think that the strings combining and entwining with the vocal is the strongest part of the song. The strings emphasise the lyrics and add layers and new elements. I have listened to Mia a few times now. It is a track that becomes more astonishing and moving every time you hear it! The vocal is such a beautiful thing. Full of such meaning and nuance, it is one of these songs that will be heard years later and admired! One gem from an album full of them, I really love Mia. It is a gorgeous thing indeed! A simply wonderful and transfixing song from one of the greatest artists in the world.

PHOTO CREDIT: Tina Tyrell/Press

To round off, I want to come back to the interview from The Forty-Five that I sourced earlier. Snail Mail’s Lindsey Jordan is a creative and visionary artist whose videos especially are incredibly memorable and original. She is a phenomenal artist who, no doubt, is inspiring so many others:

“Her most challenging moments in the producer’s seat came on ‘Forever (Sailing)’, a yacht rock track that’s easily the most dramatic musical departure from her previous work. When we call it our favourite on the record, it earns a fist pump from Jordan – “taste!” It was “a bitch to make”, with Brad letting her take the reins after he cut a sample of an old disco track, ‘You and I’, which was suitably also “a bitch to get cleared”. After some claustrophobic moments battling with melodies and time signatures, she finished the song alone in her Manhattan apartment. She’s not sure where the instincts to make yacht rock came from but she revels in the comparisons: “Papa music! It’s a fatherly riff,” she pauses to imitate a guitar groove. “It’s like ‘Lady in Red’.”

Elsewhere, Jordan rode that wave of initiative through to her music videos, channelling her love of horror and queer cinema to the visual concept for lead single ‘Valentine’. From casting to costuming, Jordan found another collaborative partnership with director Josh Coll. The video begins with a blossoming queer love between a lady and chambermaid and ends with a scorned lover’s murderous rampage, stopping only to gorge on a decadent cake. In her very own Gone Girl moment, Jordan finds herself drenched in corn-syrup blood that her stylist had to scrub off with an exfoliation glove between scenes, but the two-day shoot for ‘Valentine’ wasn’t all blood, sweat and tears”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Josefina Santos for Rolling Stone

Just before closing, Rolling Stone gave us a glimpse of the Snail Mail lead in their interview. Down to earth, stylish and growing in confidence, we will see this amazing artist grow and produce some more truly amazing work:

“Jordan, who performs as Snail Mail, takes good care of these deep indigo jeans — later, she’ll stop in her tracks to trickle water on her knee after spilling some coffee. Clutching a black backpack and wearing a lavender sweater with white-and-brown Celine loafers, she looks like an impossibly fashionable middle schooler on a field trip. Even her lace face mask, which she got from her mother’s bra store in Maryland, wins her compliments from the museum guards. “I don’t know why it’s so addicting, getting nice clothes,” she says. “It’s the ultimate cure-all.”

Jordan works with a stylist these days to craft a precise look to get across the feeling she wants in each photo shoot or music video. Take the title track for her upcoming album, Valentine. It’s a blazing rocker fueled by heartbreak and betrayal, sung with a furious new vocal power; in the video, she wears a Regency-style suit while savagely murdering an ex’s new lover and stuffing her face with cake. “I wanted to match the intensity of the song,” she explains. “I had a really good time wearing that outfit, sauntering around”.

Go and listen to Valentine and experience an album that highlights the incredible talent of Snail Mail. A tremendous artist that is among the very best in the world, Valentine is surely one of this year’s best albums. Do go and hear the album if you have not done already. The music has got stronger and more amazing since the early days. After touring and promotional work, I guess Snail Mail will start work on a third studio album. Given the quality of Valentine, it will be…