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GRACE GARDNER on her debut EPPeach
press conference
WORDS by Tessa Swantek TALENTGrace Gardner PR°1824
In her song “Parcel,” Grace Gardner sings, “We’re watching a movie that needs no introduction,” a point of view that can also describe how it feels to listen to Grace’s music. Grace released her EP Peach on March 3, 2023 and each track feels like a freeze-frame right before the film’s ending. Grace breaks the fourth wall and turns to the lens to reveal her character’s poignant internal monologue. Her words, off-script and unfiltered, string together like a reel of film.
In her song, “Deny Me” she starts the song with, “I get this twisted and sickening feeling/ I’m gonna marry you/ It sits like a rock in my stomach/ A drop off, a summit/ And some tourist is blocking the view.” The listener meets her at the precipice, and the story’s complexities are understood without preface. In each freeze-frame, there sits a peach in the background, rust-toned and soft, just before rot sets in. Grace says the EP’s title, Peach, was meant to reference her childhood in rural Texas and serve as a cinematic harbinger of danger. She says, “A few hours away [from where I grew up], in Fredericksburg, they are famous for peaches. I was raised to think that these peaches were God’s nectar. It was a childhood staple. Then, I saw in movies that peaches started showing up as a bad symbol that something was about to go down - a foreshadowing.” Like a director, Grace cares greatly about each detail of her art in its symbolism and intention.
“A few hours away [from where I grew up], in Fredericksburg, they are famous for peaches. I was raised to think that these peaches were God’s nectar. It was a childhood staple. Then, I saw in movies that peaches started showing up as a bad symbol that something was about to go down - a foreshadowing.”
Intentionality is something Grace keeps coming back to as she speaks - something she learned to appreciate while surrounded by the syncopated sounds of New Orleans’ golden saxophones and trumpets flooding into neon-lit streets lined in brick and cast-iron balconies. She shares, “In New Orleans, there are jazz bars on every corner, so I’d hangout there all the time. Watching them play with so much intention is beautiful to watch…I have learned the value of expanding my songs past one track vocal or one track guitar. I love music that is like that and some of my songs stay that way, but being around so many different instruments, you start developing an ear and can anatomically identify things that can be present.” Grace plays ten instruments, yet knows when her songs need to stay stripped back. In art, you can always add, but there is expertise required in knowing when there is nothing left to take away, when every piece has a carefully curated intention.
When working on her four-track EP, Grace calls the experience “solitary,” and shares, “I was really stubborn in the production of my EP. I didn’t trust anyone to channel what was in my brain so I spent hours on Logic and learned it myself which was grueling work.” On each track, she paid close attention to the instrumental soundtrack that plays best behind the freeze-framed story. The EP begins with “Deny Me,” which is quite hushed instrumentally at the very beginning and builds lightly to an orchestral ending. The soundscape sets the stage for a revealing drama to play out. The second track, “Parcel,” builds the tension as Grace describes it as “one final screw you to the universe until I can let it go and close the box.” Grace explains, “I hate boosting my art, but I love ‘Parcel.’ I’m a big alternative girl - my jam was Sleeping with Sirens and All Time Low. I love guitars and loud stuff. I want to go more in that direction in the Madison Cunningham zone.” “Acrobatics,” which Grace finished in eight hours, three days before the EP was due, features an almost bouncy beat with a monitor-like sound, laying the foundation for a story about mental gymnastics in a relationship. The final track, “Designated Driver,” is stripped back and echoey allowing for a deeply mournful story set in her past. Grace shares that the song is about a friendship breakup, which many know to often feel worse than a romantic breakup.
DIRECTION by OLIVIA MAAGHUL
CREATIVE PRODUCTION by ALEJANDRO HENDRICKS and ILLYANA BOCANEGRA
PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTION by JUSTIN MONTGOMERY
DESIGN PRODUCTION by MICHELLE BLUHM
EDITING by ALEJANDRO HENDRICKS
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