Last summer Alexandra Levy released when i paint my masterpiece, ending a four-year break between albums under her Ada Lea alias. She's not waiting nearly that long to put out new music this time. In August, almost exactly a year after the last LP, Ada Lea will release a new seven-song EP called the end is a wave.
The new EP features guest spots from fellow Montréal musicians Common Holly and MEGGO (of Fleece), and it seems like it will be quite the departure. Whereas when i paint my masterpiece operated with a loose and folky indie singer-songwriter zone, the end is a wave's opening track and lead single "copycat" brings Levy's guitar-driven indie-pop style into the realm of electronic beats. It retains the prior record's scrappy, lived-in feeling but also comes across as something entirely different.
Levy shared this statement on the EP:
For this EP, I wanted to combine songs that were cut from when i paint my masterpiece, as well as the ones I’d recorded a million years ago when I was just a child. It was to test their fragility. How would they behave next to the other? The old and the new? The brave and the haunted? The impression and the finely sculpted. I also decided to mix three of the songs myself (was it a mistake? you tell me…I says). I’ve been thinking of the kind of artist I’d like to be, and how I’d like to see all artists treated. I am most at home when I am creating and performing, it is what I was born to do. These worlds are opposites. 12th house and 6th, 4th & 10th, the story goes on. I can imagine a future where artists are supported by UBI and they do what they want. A kind of welfare for the serious artists that are not afraid to play. It serves the betterment of society to support artists this way. I know there are others out there, like me, that feel little purpose in their life when they’re not working toward making things. But it’s also near to impossible to make things when you are fighting to protect your energy at every turn, feeling burnt out.
She had this to say about "copycat" specifically, which takes inspiration from Elena Ferrante:
On Friendship: In 2020, I’d just finished reading The Neapolitan Quartet. Lila and Lenu’s relationship felt like some of the close and maybe slightly unhealthy friendships in my life at the time. In the case of the quartet, Lenu is defined by Lila, her Brilliant Friend. Lenu is preoccupied by what Lila is doing, thinking… whom she’s loving. Lenu mythologizes her, and in so doing diminishes herself and her work. Through the four books we come to feel that Lila is truly special and Lenu is just orbiting her. Everything seems a result of some proximity to Lila. Lila was always the source, never Lenu alone. But toward the end of the quartet, there’s a shift in Lenu as she reflects back on her life with Lila. So I wrote the “copycat” song about that moment.
Announcing "copycat" on Instagram Sunday, she wrote the following:
This is the copycat video and the song official announcement. Is it coming out tomorrow or is it coming out Wednesday? Today is Sunday. Leo risings have been told this is a good time and to be bold and to let their energy and courageous self shine. It felt fantastic to step into a confidence and boldness for 3 minutes that I don’t often let myself step into since it is in constant tension with the motivations of my emotional and inner world… if this is the case for you, too, then you will like this song. If not, pls turn away lol.
This is your last chance to turn away. The "copycat" video is below.
TRACKLIST:
01 "copycat"
02 "i've never been in love" (Feat. Common Holly)
03 "the evergreen, the birch" (Feat. MEGGO)
04 "okay, ok, o.k.!"
05 "phases"
06 "chelsea hotel #2"
07 "i miss the heavy shoulders of the trees"
the end is a wave is out 8/12 on Saddle Creek. Pre-order it here.
