WHOA
Release Date: March 6, 2020
Label: Carosello Records
Buy/Stream: https://orcd.co/whoa
TRACKLIST
1. Supermarkets
2. Yello/Concrete
3. Draw
4. audio 1
5. Ultraviolet
6. audio 2
7. Parakeet
8. Human Stuff
9. reprise
10. Elephants Sing Backwards
11. Space Dogs
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BIO
BIRTHH, aka 22-year-old Italian singer, songwriter, producer and daydreamer Alice Bisi, is all about surprises. It’s what gets her up in the morning – the never-ending promise of beauty, of a vast blue sky to lose yourself in each day. It’s also seeped into the music she makes, with her forthcoming second album WHOA full of unexpected key changes, shifting tempos and playful twists and turns. It’s there in the way the crisp beats of current single “Yello/Concrete,” about trying to stay more grounded, morph slowly into a woozy, organ-drenched ballad. Or in the undulating push and pull of the glitchy “Supermarkets” which, like the rest of the album, Bisi demoed in a nine month burst of creativity in her makeshift bedroom studio before finishing it with Solange collaborator Lucius Page and the Grammy-winning Robert ‘LB’ Dorsey.
Deeply personal – the fragile “Parakeet” is about the loss of her beloved grandmother – and gleefully abstract (Ultraviolet touches on the genetic make-up of bees), WHOA is an album that pulls the listener deep into its own world. “The songs are little planets,” she says, before keeping the space theme going by referring to the music she makes as ‘cosmic pop’. “I just do what the song requests in a way. I don’t want ever people to get bored.”
Bisi’s musical restlessness is a product of her upbringing in Florence. When she was two her parents split up and she’d spend the long drive to her dad’s house near Bologna listening to the likes of Tom Waits, Bob Dylan and Irish bands like The Chieftains. “One of the things I cherish the most about my relationship with my dad is the fact he taught me how to enjoy little things in the music,” she says. “I remember him driving and tapping on the steering wheel and I too now have this visceral thing listening to music.”
One summer at her Nan’s house she wrote her first song. “I was seven or eight, and I was already playing guitar and I decided to write a song about love and heartbreak,” she explains. “I knew people usually sang about love so I thought that’s what I would do too.” She’d initially wanted to be a drummer after watching the film School of Rock (“that was an epiphany”) but her dad, who himself used to be a musician, told her to focus on guitar or piano. “I really liked songwriting so I carried on,” she continues. “I also feel like I’ve never really been a kid – I’ve always felt 45. So I didn’t like playing with dolls or toys, but I did like pretending to be an adult.”
As she got older her tastes split between pure pop – the High School Musical soundtrack was a particular favourite – and the soulful fusion between the electronic and the organic that was present in one of her favourite records; Corinne Bailey Rae’s 2006 self-titled debut. Despite amassing a handful of songs, Bisi kept her songwriting a secret while at school in Florence. She describes her hometown as “nice but a bit suffocating”, while its beauty “definitely taught me how to appreciate the little things in life”. It was while visiting her dad that music moved from a secret hobby to a proper passion via the folky musings of her first music project, Oh! Alice. It also gave her her first opportunities to play live. “My boyfriend at the time had a band,” she explains. “I was writing songs and already putting them on Soundcloud and he was like ‘your songs are really good’. His guitar teacher was putting on these gigs so I went along and it started there. I was writing loads, so I had thirty minutes worth of a show. I was 15 or 16 at this point.”
Within a year, however, Bisi’s music had shifted, inspired in part by a forgotten guitar. “Basically I left my acoustic guitar at my dad’s, so I had to use my electric guitar. I didn’t like the way it sounded on its own, so I started adding beats using [computer program] Logic.” Suddenly BIRTHH was, er, born. “I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of origin,” she says of the moniker. “It’s certain, basically. Birth, along with death, are the only two certainties. Everything that exists was born at some point.” And why the extra ‘h’? “Have you ever tried to Google birth without it?” she laughs. Keen to be able to play more shows, she recorded her debut album, Born in the Woods. Written between the ages of 17 and 19, and inspired by bands such as Daughter, it was a dark and angry beast, specifically lead single Chlorine. “My ex posted this Snapchat message and I was completely heartbroken,” she laughs. “She had moved onto someone new so I was super heartbroken on that album. But I was over it by the time I started playing it live.” As well as touring her own shows, Bisi also shared a festival stage with the likes of PJ Harvey and Mac DeMarco, and supported the likes of Andrew Bird, Benjamin Clementine and Nick Murphy.
In fact, it was while on tour in Canada that the first song for WHOA started to take shape, albeit under tragic circumstances. “The first song I wrote was “Parakeet.” This song is about my dead grandmother. I was coming back from tour and my dad was like ‘your Nan is very sick’. I’d basically grown up with my Nan, and she raised me pretty much so it was heartbreaking for me. She’d had a stroke so she wasn’t really there. I wrote the song before seeing her and I just wanted to put all my childhood memories in a song. To me it’s a special song, because it’s basically my life, and my childhood. I was selfish with this song, I didn’t care if people really understood it.” If Parakeet is the album’s emotional core, then the pop-leaning opener Supermarkets is a playful reminder of our own limitations. “I like the first thing people hear is the line “people are just people, they don’t know what they’re after”. It’s true. We don’t. Also, I like the word ‘supermarkets’. I like the imagery of routine, and how we rely on it to reveal existential stuff in life. Humans have a hard time just stopping and thinking about what’s happening in our lives.”
“Yello/Concrete” meanwhile, with its lyric “I’ve quit doing handstands, always on my two feet”, is about “being more grounded than I was before. I’m a dreamer, but sometimes I get lost in my own head.” An example of that is the breezy, pocket symphony of Ultraviolet, which is about how the human experience is limited and ultimately subjective. “We are limited. Even our own senses. The song is mainly about music and art in general, and beauty,” she says. The song also features a cameo from Philadelphia-raised rapper Ivy Sole. “It was one take,” Bisi beams. “She has such an amazing flow. I think she’s really going to blow up.” Hip-hop also inspires the closing “Space Dogs” – Bisi is a big fan of Noname – a song that picks up the tempo to discuss a desire to escape if nuclear war starts, anchored by the deeply sarcastic “twenty-first century, what a time to be alive”. Her escape route? “I’m going to take my spaceship and leave.” she laughs.
It’s a telling answer. Bisi’s music is often other-worldly, a constantly shifting mood that feels simultaneously unknowable and yet rooted in humanity. A head in the clouds but with one foot on the ground. With WHOA she’s crafted an intricate, consistently compelling suite of immersive alt-pop that shifts wilfully between genres – jazz, folk, soul, hip-hop, you name it – while taking you on a journey you don’t want to end. “I just hope people who listen to my music feel something from it,” Bisi says. “I want to help people with this album. At the end of the day, I hope it has some positivity to it.” It’s what the world needs.
PRESS QUOTES
“…achingly pretty…” – GoldFlakePaint
“…sounds like an ominous murmuration of fluttering robo-birds.” – NPR
“…an evocative piece of electro-folk, complete with soulful, mournful vocals in a gospel-like arrangement, earthy percussion touches, and heart-tugging keyboard chords.” – KCRW
“WHOA continues where her 2016 debut LP Born in the Woods left off: with beautifully composed songs accompanying her confessional lyrics and expressive voice.” – KEXP
“BIRTHH is in the upper echelon of unique talents challenging our concept of “what it means to be a singer/songwriter.” – Atwood Magazine
“…offers a musical smorgasbord of sound that brings pop, folk, jazz and electronica to the mix.” – American Songwriter
MUSIC
Buy/Stream WHOA: https://orcd.co/whoa
Listen/Watch/Share “Supermarkets” here: https://orcd.co/supermarkets
PHOTOS (by Sha Ribeiro)
