Addie Pray – “Watch TV”
Sports just released their second album and swan song but, as I mentioned when we highlighted them as a best new band, the Gambier, OH group was bound to serve as the jumping off point for a number of other worthwhile projects, and it looks like we’ve already got our first. Sports songwriter and vocalist Carmen Perry has been putting out songs under the moniker Addie Pray — named after the ’70s novel — for a few years now, and she’s teaming up with Father/Daughter Records to put out her next collection of songs, Screentime. There’s some Sports cross-pollination here — band member Jack Washburn plays drums on this track and contributes to a few others — but “Watch TV” is significantly pared back from her former band’s energy, and that sound works within the context of the song. It’s all about finding things to do with yourself while you’re missing someone else (“I’ll go out and find a job/ Rather not be where you’re not”), and it sounds just as isolated and spare as Perry’s lyrics feel. Listen below.
Screentime is out 11/27 via Father/Daughter Records.