Mallrat (aka Grace Shaw) has officially unveiled her debut album, ‘Butterfly Blue’, sharing with the news a dark and stormy new single titled ‘Teeth’.
Veering away from the bouncy and buoyant indie-pop stylings of her earlier work, ‘Teeth’ sees Shaw tap more into her ‘90s alt-rock influences: over a bed of deep, subtle-yet-impactful bass guitars and warbling atmospherics, the Brisbane artist – whose vocals are drenched in reverb – sings with dry, gloom-inflected restraint.
After a punchy, fuzzed-out drum machine beat and gravelly, distorted guitar line kicks in around the 43-second mark, she sings: “In my prayer, I don’t speak / But with my hands and on my knees / When I ask, I receive / Don’t play fair, don’t be sweet.”
Have a listen to ‘Teeth’ below:
In a press release, Shaw said: “I like to think that if ‘Teeth’ was out in 2004 it would be on the OC soundtrack. In the song I describe a big, omnipresent ‘it’. When I wrote these lyrics I was playing with the idea that we talk about sex and prayer and violence and power with very similar language. I wanted to see if I could blur all of these things into one blurry ball of energy.”
‘Teeth’ comes our third preview of ‘Butterfly Blue’, following the release of ‘Rockstar’ (another rock-inspired cut) in October of 2020, and ‘Your Love’ (a synthy trap-pop track) exactly a month ago. The record itself will be out on May 13 via Dew Process, serving as the follow-up to 2019’s ‘Driving Music’ EP. Preorder bundles are available now from Shaw’s website.
“I’ve always valued music that is interesting, beautiful and unpretentious,” Shaw said of her upcoming full-length debut. “Something timeless and not reactive. ‘Butterfly Blue’ was made with that in mind. It’s a demonstration of not pretending to be anyone else.”
According to the press release, ‘Butterfly Blue’ saw Shaw drawing notable influence from pop, rock and folk acts, and experimenting with a range of unique sampling techniques. Among those are “chopped-up Gangsta Pat bars” as well as “a flipped recording of a children’s choir performing ‘Lisztomania’ [by Phoenix] and distorted effects recorded from discarded children’s toys”.