LIZZIE REID, the young Glaswegian songwriter who is a massive, massive new talent – no dissent now at the back, this is just how it is – has been melting hearts at Backseat Mafia over the past few months as she’s hashed out a little trail of candid and heartfelt tunesmithery en route to her debut EP, Cubicle, which finally lands on February 10th on Seven Four Seven Six.
They always say, as an authorial tip, “write about what you know”; and Lizzie does with an absolute devotion to her truth and melody and a bloody lovely tune.
There was the raw and chest-wrenching “Seamless” back in October, which completely captured that refusal to let go that so often accompanies a broken heart: “I still have your clothes / I’ll be wearing your jumpers,” she sings therein, her voice always at the verge of cracking.
Then there was the up-close-and-personal “Always Lovely”, with which Lizzie announced the EP itself, full of the whispered power of early Cat Power, shiversomely close.
Today she’s dropping “Been Thinking About You” , just to show she’s more than just an extremely talented gal with a guitar; check that swing elegance, stop-starting with a Britsoul insouciance in its investigations of just how to love; it could don a diamante gown and a string section and sweep a board or two. Not that it needs to, of course. But it aims, and bullseyes, a post-Amy grace with ease.
It’s got swagger, a little spontaneous chuckle, squeals and screams as she ‘goes electric’ and lets the song rip.
“This is almost an appreciation song for a friend of mine,” she says.
He was such a support for me at a time I wasn’t feeling my best. I was going through quite a confusing time and felt guilty that I couldn’t support him in the same way he supported me.”
The EP, put together with urgency and immediacy last March just before the preventative curtain of the first lockdown draped over country’s stage, diarises a formative summer when Lizzie’s first same-sex relationship came to an end.
As the world went properly, truly wonky, Lizzie created a six-track salvo of love, loss, beauty, hope and cracking tunes.
“It is really important to me that I got to make something with people I care about and that we created something amazing and genuine,” she concludes.
Look out for our review of Lizzie’s EP roundabout the morning of February 4th.
Lizzie Reid’s Cubicle EP will be released by Seven Four Seven Six digitally on February 10th; follow Lizzie on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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