New Mix: Beach House, Jasmyn, Mckenna Grace, more
Clockwise from upper left: Beach House, Lizzy McAlpine, Jasmyn, Semler Courtesy of the artists hide caption
I begin this edition of All Songs Considered with an ambitious project from Beach House. The Baltimore duo is set to release what they're calling four "chapters" of music between November and February. The project is called Once Twice Melody, and I have the title track for you. I also play a cut from Medium Build, the music of Alaska-based musician and Tiny Desk alum Nick Carpenter. Nick accompanied our 2019 Tiny Desk contest winner Quinn Christopherson on guitar for that prize-winning performance. We hear Medium Build's deeply personal tune, "Rabbit."
A more recent Tiny Desk contestant that caught our attention is the queer Christian singer-songwriter Semler. The song "Prodigal Girl" relates the story of her good friend who, as a result of becoming born-again, shut Semler out of her life. It left Semler with questions that she knew she'd never get answers to, and this song, produced with Jax Anderson, runs through a series of those questions in search of answers.
I didn't know the 15-year-old, gifted actress Mckenna Grace before I heard her song "Haunted House," nor did I know she was so young, and that this was her first-ever released song. But "Haunted House" has some surprising twists and turns and spells out the beginnings of an exciting new career for Mckenna Grace. We then hear the music of Jasmyn, who, as Jasmyn Burke, was a powerful singer for the Toronto band Weaves. I was in awe over a 2015 concert I saw of Weaves and brought them to the Tiny Desk shortly after. Now she's on her own as Jasmyn and has a fantastic new song, "Find the Light." The show closes out with Lizzy McAlpine, another new artist and a former student of the Berklee School of Music, and a current TikTok star. The song, "doomsday," reflects a toxic high school relationship, while the song uses the analogy of heartbreak as death, but a death that leads only to a brighter future.