Listen: I’m Your Guy — Anna Shoemaker

Fresh off the release of her debut album, Everything Is Fine (I’m Only On Fire), the wonderful and prolific Anna Shoemaker is back with another brand-new track for your aural pleasure.

Following on from the drama of Anna’s more recent releases, I’m Your Guy has a wholesome and reassuring feeling to it. Atop grungy but laid-back instrumentation, Shoemaker lays out a song of commitment and reassurance, singing on the chorus, “Baby if you’ll be my man, I’m your guy”.

I’m Your Guy is about that kind of love, romantic and platonic, where you are there for one another and have each other’s backs. As Anna herself goes on to say:

“It’s been made clear over and over again that people in our country don’t really give a shit about us, so it’s really up to us to protect and be there for each other.”

Check out I’m Your Guy below:

Watch: Until I Die — Anna Shoemaker

Anna Shoemaker’s brand of brutally honest, alternative pop has been one of my favourite finds over the past few months. Change My Mind buzzed and shimmered with a dreamy west coast grunge feel, Everything Is Fine popped with anarchic energy, and Mariah exploded, an angry-and-sweary epic pop dynasty. Shoemaker feels like the Venn diagram intersection of Taylor Swift and Soccer Mommy, built to steal my heart.

Today sees Shoemaker unveil her debut album, Everything Is Fine (I’m Only On Fire), and alongside it comes another new song, Until I Die. Characteristically nihilistic, Until I Die sits somewhere between the sound of Change My Mind and Everything Is Fine. Less overtly polished than anything Anna has released recently, it grinds along with a vacant swagger. Toms and a kick drum punch out an assertive, dark backing to a frankly pissed-off sounding vocal, before launching into a disorientated chorus that swallows you up in a fog of guitar and distortion.

The range demonstrated over the releases that have led up to Anna Shoemaker’s debut album is impressive. I can’t wait to hear more.

Watch: Mariah — Anna Shoemaker

I’ve been a touch obsessed with Anna Shoemaker since she put out the gloriously intimate Change My Mind in December, together with its fabulous video. Now she is back with something a little different, in the form of Mariah.

Where Change My Mind felt like the kind of grimy and grounded indie that Snail Mail and Soccer Mommy might make, Mariah packs a more overtly commercial aesthetic. Warm bass notes gently unfold and bend slightly under the weight of the song as an 8-bit style rhythm clicks and bleeps, guitar adding a steely-eyed determination right before Shoemaker drops her chorus.

And what a chorus it is, for Shoemaker is becoming the queen of deadpan delivery… The emotion held back in the performance itself, and all the more resonant in the words Anna sings. Compared to Change My Mind, Mariah took a little while to sink its teeth into me, but I find myself a little more hooked on Anna’s tale of fire and gaslighting every time I hear it. The song is a haunting, beautiful, cinematic ode to being really fucking done.

Describing the release, Shoemaker says:

“This is a final straw song, the one where you borderline get in trouble for putting it out, so I figured if it sounds sweet, maybe no-one will notice how mad I am.”

Check out Mariah below:

Listen: Change My Mind — Anna Shoemaker

With the kind of stripped-back and vulnerable sound that I find irresistible, Brooklyn-based mucin Anna Shoemaker’s new single Change My Mind glitters with an incandescent earthiness.

Anna’s verse quivers with a human intensity — her vocal enveloped in space, as a guitar is plays gently, the squeal of fingers sliding up-and-down the fretboard almost elevated to the point of being their own instrument. With the chorus, however, Shoemaker’s vocal soars, a previously unexpected gutsiness flooding that space. Guitars take on a more aggressive stance, the folksiness of Change My Mind’s verse suddenly developing a grungy feel.

Anna originally gained attention for No Lie, Bitch Don't Kill My Cocoa Butter Kisses, her cover version mashup of Kendrick Lamar’s Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe, Chance The Rapper’s Cocoa Butter Kisses, Drake’s Girls Love Beyonce & Destiny's Chid's Say My Name. Since then, she has released two EPs, East Side and Everything Is Embarrassing, received support from Refinery29 and Billboard, and been featured by Spotify and Apple Music.

Despite her origin in that creative mashup, Anna Shoemaker has created a song that feels fascinating and surprising, yet free of gimmicks. Change My Mind is the third song to be lifted from her forthcoming debut album, due in 2022, and depicts a growing maturity and emotional intimacy. Describing the song, Anna says,

“It’s about being hopeful while also accepting and welcoming your emotions as they come. Writing this song really changed a lot for me.”

Check out Change My Mind below, and look out for Anna Shoemaker’s debut album next year.