Image: Marcus Coblyn.
Melbourne alt-rocker Hayley Mary has announced the release of her sophomore EP The Drip, due out June. The announcement is accompanied by the release of Mary;s new single, Young & Stupid, and follows up The Jezabels front woman's debut solo EP The Piss, The Perfume.
Offering up a more gentle and vulnerable side to her powerful vocals, the emotionally charged ballad came to be after the sound of a landline phone rang through Mary's partners home. “I hadn’t realised they even had a landline." the musician shares. "It was like a ghost calling through the hallway with that old school ring. ‘Who the hell even calls you on that?’ I asked. ‘Only Nana,’ my partner replied. As it was in the middle of the worst part of covid, there was a certain vibe around; of everything that had been taken for granted; of the preciousness of life and the fragility of the old, mixed with a pronounced concern with where technology was going to take us. We reflected on the probability that when the last landlines in the world stopped ringing it would only be because a certain generation was gone.”
Mary’s forthcoming sophomore EP The Drip is set to bring newfound exhilaration and energy and thematically, is about Hayley finally finding her place in the world. Where her 2020 debut EP The Piss, The Perfume explored feelings of conflict and uncertainty, The Drip is the sound of a woman who knows exactly who she is and what she wants to say. Musically, it taps into the UK’s longstanding love affair with ’60s guitar pop – a lineage from the Beatles to the Libertines and beyond, but there are also the genres she grew up hearing her musician dad playing: UK punk, Celtic melodies, Northern soul. Some tracks are co-writes with her boyfriend Johnny Took, who also co-produced the EP along with Scott Horscroft.
Young & Stupid is out now! Listen to the track below.