Deau Eyes is the project of Richmond, VA-based musician Ali Thibodeau, and later this year she’s releasing her debut album, Let It Leave. She produced it with Jacob Blizard and Collin Pastore, who have also worked with Lucy Dacus and Illuminati Hotties. She’s also good friends with Dacus, and her own music makes it clear why they might get along. It’s confessional and open-hearted, layered and sly. The album’s lead single, “Some Do,” is about the often brutal task of pursuing life as an artist.

“‘Some Do’ is a portrait of my life as an actress/singer/dancer in the audition rooms of NYC and my journey breaking out of that lifestyle,” Thibodeau explains in a statement. “I was truly pounding the pavement as a musical theatre performer and found myself scrambling for who I was. I had a particularly brutal rejection after a few years of no work and my brother offered some sage advice, ‘Burn all your bridges and never look back. Do something with your songs.’ So I quit my waitressing job, stopped going to theatre auditions, and started busking on the street.”

“I don’t belong in an hourglass room/ With timers and deadlines and shrinking balloons/ But some do,” she sings. Thibodeau’s twang provides an escape from that drudgery and anxiety, and though she’s trading in one creative medium for another that can be just as hard, she sings with a renewed sense of energy: “I’m hoping next month I’ll stay covered in glue/ Do it all anywhere, leave a trail where I do/ Stand on the land, watch the flames burn through.”

Watch a video for the track below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Some Do”
02 “Paper Stickers”
03 “Smoke”
04 “Miner And Raven”
05 “Parallel Time”
06 “Autonomy”
07 “Dear Young Love”
08 “Full Proof”
09 “The Bow”

TOUR DATES:
02/14 Washington, DC @ Songbyrd Vinyl Lounge
02/15 New York, NY @ Rockwood Music Hall
02/28 Pittsburgh, PA @ Glove World
03/01 Detroit, MI @ PJ’s Lager House
03/13 Raleigh, NC @ Slim’s
03/14 Atlanta, GA @ Smith’s Olde Bar
03/15 Birmingham, AL @ House Show
03/17 Lafayette, LA @ Loud House
03/18-21 Austin, TX @ SXSW
03/22 Denton, TX @ Rubber Gloves
03/24 Nashville, TN @ The Basement
03/25 Lexington, KY @ Sidecar

Let It Leave is out 5/8 via Egghunt Records.