Phoebe Bridgers was a major discovery at this year's SXSW — and, before that, the voice behind the tremendous EP Killer, released via Ryan Adams' label in 2015. Now, hers already feels like an indispensable voice. This year alone, Bridgers has toured with Conor Oberst, performed a South X Lullaby from an Austin hotel bed, and signed the label deal that will bring her first album, Stranger In The Alps, to the world on Sept. 22.
"Smoke Signals," the first song from that record, demonstrates so many of Bridgers' greatest gifts: the cool-yet-warm approachability, the languid grace of her arrangements, the gift for powerful phrasing and precise scene-setting. But that song's new follow-up, "Motion Sickness," showcases another side altogether, as Bridgers wraps her voice around a rich and rumbling midtempo rocker.
Amid references to an abandoned attempt at hypnotherapy, Bridgers crafts a vivid description of an unquiet mind, with an apt and evocative metaphor to drive it all home in the chorus: "I have emotional motion sickness / Somebody roll the windows down / There are no words in the English language / I could scream to drown you out."
Stranger In The Alpstrack listing
Stranger In The Alps comes out Sept. 22 via Dead Oceans.
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