Meg Elsier Reveals Debut Album, ‘Spittake’
The Nashville based, singer and songwriter meg elsier released highly-anticipated debut album spittake surrounding the indie-rock genre. The album even includes other musical elements using grunge, contemporary pop, and folk. These elements all coincide with each other in elsier’s newest work. The up and coming artist’s sweet melodic vocals against the grungy, roughness of the production create an interesting juxtaposition throughout the project. Throughout the tracklist, elsier speaks about love, death, nostalgia, youth, anxiety, depression and everything in between. Keeping in touch with some words of self-deprecation to add some personal quirk.
The 11-track album spittake was written and demoed solely by meg over the last few years. Further on in the creative process, the artist collaborated with Nashville-based producer Ryan McFadden. Together they successfully recorded the final product keeping the intention of the album clear. The goal being able to hear the carefully handmade lyricism and production from meg elsier’s innovative craftsmanship. “The creation of spittake was the biggest and scariest thing that I’ve done,” meg says. “It’s something I built up and something that seemed somewhat impossible to even imagine how to achieve. But it happened! Ryan McFadden and I made this record by getting to know each other’s intentions and taste, and just brain processes.“
The lowercase, uncapitalized song titles pay homage to the album’s original demo names. Taking a deep-dive into the project here are some of the observations. Tracks like “spittake”, “saturdaymorning”, “LA” and “takeout” share the same acoustic styles. This can be related back to elsier’s artistic production choice of keeping the rawness from her original demos. While the contrasts of songs like “iznotreal”, “baby” and “eastside” leans more towards the rock genre. With an addition of combinations of electric guitar and drums. The artist, elsier, does a great job of writing about the emotional rollercoaster of dealing with change. “The story isn’t necessarily linear,” meg explains. “But the main connection throughout is this unreliable narrator that you as a listener determine your view/trust of. They are incredibly inconsistent with their statements but I believe they think they’re telling the truth.”
This theme is especially evident in the somber melody of spittake’s closing track “LA” — which includes an eclectic music video directed by Jacqueline Justice. The singer is seen dressed in angel wings possibly representing the innocence of childhood and being scared of growing up in the real world. A world which is being compared to California’s city of angels, “LA”. Throughout the video elsier is seen standing alone while other women dance in white lace nightgowns around her. The songs talks about the fear of leaving home and reality setting in, even if you are fighting it. At the end of the visualizer, a sparkling sword can be seen put into the artist’s heart. A dark message of either taking back your power or having to succumb to reality’s change. Leaving the message up the listeners. The indie-rock artist is taking a huge step forward in her career. This album, spittake, is planting a seed in the soil and meg elsier will soon be a fully blossomed flower in the music industry!
Photo Credit: Jacq Justice (Artwork & Press Photo)