ABRA, the ‘first lady of Awful Records’, has released, Rose, the follow up album to her BLQ Velvet project, and lead single ‘Roses XOXO’ shows off an R&B sound which has been purposefully left a little rough around the edges.
Abra calls her music ‘lo-fi glam pop’, and I think that’s a pretty bang on description. ‘Roses XOXO’ has got that familiar girl pop 80's style, but it’s her own minor key vocals and unsettled beat that creates the disconnect in which the interest and unique points lie.
With lines like "I’m dumb and I’ll chase/ I’m young and I’ll waste you away", there’s a sense of youthful obsession, as if she’s fixated on burning out both herself and her man. Abra is self aware and works to perfect her darkwave sound; it’s the kind of track that you imagine FKA Twigs might quite enjoy. Awful Records, Abra’s label, are well known for their place amongst Atlanta’s underground hip-hop scene, and though this may be pop music, it’s the good kind of pop that is weird and trippy.
Abra is sending out a pretty pragmatic message: "a rose is something that blossoms and is super beautiful and then dies really fast, like all beautiful things. Everything dies. Everything has its seasons. Move the fuck on. There’ll be more roses next year."
And hopefully more singles like this to follow.
Words by Katie Rowley
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