“I just want to live on the edge of genre, on the edge of profanity, on the edge of everything.”
Written in a short space of time between tours in 2022 and 2023, Remi describes LP2 as a collection of sibling songs rather than a record of a specific time and place. “I'd go on tour and come home for a week and a half, and I'd be working on music for the whole week and a half. Then I'd go out and do the same thing again. I only did it for two years,” she recalls. “So there are definitely pockets of songs. There are three songs that sound like sisters, then four songs that sound like sisters, and then five other songs. But put together, You will see a very happy family.”
It's a routine that doesn't allow for much downtime, but it's also one that probably worked to the singer's advantage in the face of the well-documented anxiety of a “difficult second album.” It may be a cliché, but it's a word that Remi felt keenly. “There's a lot of lore on the second album. I think it can be scary,” she nods. “There's a lot of pressure to get people to love this album and make it their baby as much as I made the first album my baby. I think it's hard for everyone when the sound cuts out at the beginning. I have something to think about.” [to accept]. You have to be open, and you just want everyone to be open to you. ”
Although she's keeping the title and details a secret for now, the bones of the song are clearly forming into a new and evolved skeleton. She describes some “absolutely wild song forms” and her newfound love of synths. On this album, she plays drums, bass, guitar, and tries her hand at vocals more than ever before. “Every song I write, I somehow write the most difficult vocal part ever, and I'm like, 'Damn, now I have to do this live,' and I do it. “It's so hard…” she moaned.
Last year's solo single “Prescription,” a laid-back, seven-minute soulful jam, was a new card in Remi's deck, but it's not an indication of where he'll go next. never. What you get out of it, she emphasizes, is to have no expectations at all. “I always just do what I want to do. I don't think I'm ever going to conform, and if there are feelings of conformity, I'm going to actively fight them,” she said with a smile on her shoulder. I shrug. “There’s definitely no other song on this record that sounds like ‘Prescription,’ but no other song is like it either.
“The big thing to actively reject is the TikTok culture itself,” she continues. “Right now, I feel like the definition of a singer-songwriter on TikTok is very specific and boxed in, but that sound is traveling all over the world and taking over places like Spotify and YouTube. Pressures as an artist I want people to like my work, and along with that comes a lot of comments like “Wow!''. Should I sound like that or should I try to write the lyrics another way? And you have to put all that out of your head and think, 'No, everything that comes out of me is the best, because it's me.' ”
