When Nashville-based singer-songwriter Mali Velasquez traded her Texas panhandle home for the verdant foothills of Tennessee, she did so with a newfound perspective that mirrored her environment, culminating in the lushly raw edge of her folk-rooted indie rock. Wistfully openhearted and incisive, Velasquez tips the fulcrum between reflection and remedy with melody-forward unction and lyrical tenderness. Velasquez’s debut album I’m Green was helmed by up-and-coming producer Josef Kuhn (Samia, Annie DiRusso, Hannah Cole) bringing a lushly raw edge to her folk-rooted indie rock. The nine-track set explores Velasquez’s feelings of grief after the loss of her mother, as well as struggling to stay transparent through an unhealthy relationship with her own body and its needs. It’s due out October 13 via Nashville indie label Acrophase Records (Ginger Root, Blaketheman1000, Winona Forever).
Fueled by a radiating inflection of breath and a steady backbeat, Velasquez unearths an emotional outpouring on new single, “Tore”. The track swells with synthesizer color and sparing guitar touches, highlighting the vocal release that Velasques carries, unmistakably inspired by Adrianne Lenker. “Tore” is a raw, yet focused indie rock explosion of sound and color.
Of the lead single, “Tore,” Velasquez offers, “‘Tore’ is a song mostly about my own way of self-sabotaging. I have no idea how to combat being embarrassed all the time still, but explaining it some has helped. Being comfortable in my skin is something that feels out of reach a lot of the time. I put a lot of my ideas of not knowing how to feel or what to do or eat or wear into this song.”
