Mersey Wylie needs to be true to herself.
As an artist, she can only really write about what she feels, about the emotions that course through her veins on a daily basis.
New EP 'The Skin I Live In' is testament to this; a powerful document of a talent coming in bloom, working with outright confidence.
She explains: "I wrote 'The Skin I Live In', rather unintentionally, about my relationship with my mental health. Although it's a theme that I've referenced in previous songs that I've written, I've never explored it so fully or been so open about it so it feels like a pretty scary thing to put out into the world."
Out on November 15th, the EP is trailed by shockingly honest new cut 'Giving Myself Away', a starkly beautiful return that places her own feelings, her own worth, to the forefront.
"The first single, 'Giving Myself Away' occupies that point between resignation and hope—where giving up can feel like both failure and relief. I aimed to convey both the overwhelming feeling of anxiety and the listlessness of depression in the instrumentation as well as the lyrics; overwhelm through the intricate layered instrumentation that builds throughout, and listlessness through the repetitive, cyclical chord progressions and repeating vocal lines."
Sam Wiehl directs the final video, and it airs for the very first time through Clash. Mersey continues:
"I knew I wanted something special for the video but I felt it was important to hand over the reigns as to what that could be. Because this record is so personal and I wrote, arranged and co-produced it, I felt like it would benefit from a different perspective when it came to the video."
"I had loved Sam's previous work and the first time we met up to talk about potential ideas and themes, I realised he completely got it straight away. He came up with so many beautiful and downright odd interpretations of the song, none of which felt clichéd or too literal, and I'm really proud of what we created."
Tune in now.
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