By Maura Marcellino
I hope you all had a wonderful Pride Month this year. I wanted to share a queer artist that has reached my radar, ella ruby. She is a 22 year-old singer-songwriter from Seattle, Washington. She was raised on rainstorms and touts an excessive love of books. The past few years have found her primarily studying ancient history, playing with clay, and getting over her exes. All of these things come through in her music, along with her inspirations like Brandi Carlile, Billie Marten, Julie Byrne, and Shannon Lay. Her latest single, “last year,” has been It’s moody, gritty, dark, and dreamy, and builds some energy and angst into a meditative indie-folk-style tune that leads the listeners through the ebb and flow of longing for a past-lover. Even though I have never been in a real romantic relationship, I found myself living my main character fantasies while drinking my tea or coffee on a rainy day staring out the window while sitting on a little nook in my kitchen.
Personally, my favorite lyrics are, “stupid, maybe/ the ache of being young/ I forget the way it felt when you were mine.” As someone who is the same age as ella ruby, this hit me hard. I know that 22 is a legal adult, but we are still so young. With being young, comes knowing that I have not experienced all my major heartaches. To me these poetic lyrics remind me that while I have experienced many different things in my life, I am still young, naive, and have years of love and pain. The soft vocals, thoughtful lyrics, dreamy instrumentals, and snaps all blend well to create this aesthetically pleasing track.
“last year” is available on major streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. Find this single and her previous single, “baths” and more new exciting music on our Alchemical Multigenre Mixdown Playlist and Study Group Playlist on Spotify and YouTube.
Maura Marcellino is studying business and environmental sustainability at George Mason University. When she is not studying, Maura enjoys listening to music and spending time with friends and family.
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Alchemical Records is a Washington, D.C. based music publication. We cover the Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Richmond, VA metro area music scenes, including band interviews, articles about your favorite musicians, new music and concert dates.
