zannie Releases New Track 'for a while'

Brooklyn's zannie recently announced their debut album How Do I Get That Star, out August 19th, 2022 via Kill Rock Stars. Today, we share zannie's new song "for a while," a midi-medieval country song, largely about Zannie's hometown of New Bern, NC.

It blends the philosophical concept of the eternal return with the strange, occasional longing to return to your place of origins. On the song, Zannie sings about a man running around a Nascar track, as well as their desire to "summon up a demon and try to f the moon."

There's pedal steel and keys that gurgle like water in a bog. If you're not in a haunted swamp, the song is the kind of music you'd want to hear preferably while driving fast with the windows down, sun on your skin, wind in your hair.

On the track and accompanying video, zannie tells Flood: '"for a while' is a midi-country song about my hometown of New Bern, North Carolina. Thematically the song blends the philosophical concept of eternal return with the deja-vu inducing experience of literally returning to where one is from. My friend Sofi Shapiro and I took a trip to my hometown to capture most of the footage.

The video features me in dragon form questing for the eternal fire which connects all lifetimes, at times by communing with those sentient and wise pines. I attempted to surf in the dragon costume at the end, but discovered the tail and head became quite heavy once drenched in water. I ended up burning the costume once I got back to New York, and overlaid that footage on top of my surfing attempts. "Return and burn", etc."

Brooklyn's Zannie Owens conceived of their debut solo record, How Do I Get That Star, as an homage to Voyager One Golden Record, the album that Carl Sagan and Lynn Margulis sent into space in 1977. "I was following this narrative idea about an alien on Earth trying to find their way back to their home planet," says zannie. The idea also comes from one of their favorite poets, Jack Spicer, "He had this whole thing about artists being radio transmitters for Martians or ghosts."

When zannie was making the record, they were listening to a lot of Judee Sill and Prince. How Do I Get This Star takes on that kind of velvety, baroque feeling. Just take "song of rose pain," as one such offering. Here, arpeggiated keys and drum machines take on the hypertrophied quality of a monstera.

In the foreground, resonant guitars glow, and zannie sings about wondering whether or not they're a human. The cavernous "doppler," is a science ballad. The song is about the titular doppler effect. It's the oldest song on the record, and gives off the vibe of a trip to one of Jupiter's far off moons. On "a rose for every puppet," they explore love, not just in the big feeling romantic kind, but also in a more platonic sense.

There are saxophones and pristine bass grooves, synths that shimmer and shake. The song exists in the milieu between thorny chamber pop and adult contemporary. It's a little bit sexy. Mostly it makes you want to dance wildly.

The same can be true of all of the record, which is a true blue, one of a kind piece of music. It's closest contemporary analogs are Erin Birgy's project as Mega Bog, or Johanna Warren. How Do I Get This Star is a gorgeous album, containing matter both dark and light. If the record is the product of mitotic reproduction, its final form is a rose, a puppet, a little alien guy who is far from home but very much along for the ride.

Watch the nw music video here: