New York based indie pop musician, Yasmeen, is still figuring out new things about herself in her new single “Stranger” which proceeds the release of her upcoming debut album, Marina Del Ray. Driven by breathy vocals and long, sustained chords on the piano, she finds herself evolving into a version of herself that she doesn’t yet recognize.
“I felt like a stranger” she notes about the song’s inspiration, “I couldn’t recognize the person I was. At first, I didn’t like it and it scared me. I didn’t understand the change, nor did I want to”. And you can feel that sense of desperation and mystery so clearly as it seeps through with each strike of the piano as she laments “I’m a stranger in this town”. She channels the complex feelings of moving away from her hometown for the first time (having moved to Marina Del Ray), and grapples with feeling like a small, or unseen fish in a new, and possibly larger, fishbowl.
For fans of pop goddesses like Lorde, Adele, or even Taylor Swift in her softer moments, this is a song that is a must-add to any summer playlist. It’s moody when it needs to be but allows itself moments of propulsion where the drums and synthesizers kick into overdrive making the composition feel larger-than-life. Yasmeen seems to understand towards the end that expanding her new persona to limits will be the only way to overcome this feeling of being a “stranger”. As she becomes more visible and familiar to this new community, this song will inevitably be marked as a big moment of transition with new, great things to come.
“Stranger” is available on major streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. Find this and more excellent music on the Alchemical Records Mutligenre Mixture playlist on Spotify.
Charlie Maybee is a dancer, musician, educator, and writer based in Charleston, South Carolina who currently teaches with the Dance Program at the College of Charleston. His primary work as an artist is with his performing collective, Polymath Performance Project, through which he makes interdisciplinary performance art that centers tap dance as the primary medium of expression and research. He also currently plays rhythm guitar for the Charleston-based punk band, Anergy, and releases music as a solo artist under the name Nox Eterna.
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Alchemical Records is a Washington, D.C. based music publication. We cover the Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Richmond, VA metro area music scenes, including band interviews, articles about your favorite musicians, new music and concert dates.
