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Using the metaphor of something so typically flashy and beloved like a sportscar, except in this instance it has been left to rust and disintegrate, she conveys the emotional burnout of your early twenties. Still, that car is her youth personified: no matter how run down, it still has a rose-tinted sheen.
The dissension runs deep in the production of “sportscar [scrapped]”, as honey-sweet vocals clash against grungy guitar lines. It’s no wonder elsier has just been announced as the support for fellow contrarian Blondshell’s North American tour this June, as the pair lie comfortably on the same sonic spectrum. Bursting with shoegaze goodness, elsier’s music is always hook-forward, and lyrically adept.
The track is the lead single of the deluxe edition of elsier’s debut album, spittake, out last year. Speaking of its creation, elsier shares "'sportscar' is a really interesting addition to the deluxe, specifically because spittake almost had a completely different identity. There was a time when I was playing with the idea of naming the album Check Engine Light On. The influence of cars and how they move you through life is something I didn’t realize was so important to spittake until after I’d written it."
"I was really identifying with my beat-up car my mother gave me,” she continues. “It was this thing handed to me that I treated like shit… But that kinda was my life at the time. Something that was shiny and fast, a veneer; but if you checked under the hood, it was burning out. The oil was dark, and the engine was smoking. I would dye my hair (new paint job), get dolled up (took her to the car wash), and perform so well socially when I went out (that V8 engine purring, baby), but that was all it was. I had a coming-to moment like, ‘This isn’t sustainable and I’m about to crash out.'"
Transforming this quiet introspection into a roaring climax, “sportscar [scrapped]” puts the pedal to the metal for elsier’s ascent. Embracing, rather than shying away from, an inherent honesty it lays the perfect groundwork for spittake’s deluxe, which promises raw live recordings, and intimate demos.
English (US) · 