Alice Merton’s debut album MINT saw the Berlin-based musician achieve phenomenal success. A fixture on Top 10 charts across Europe, Alice has accumulated 1 billion streams and was the winning judge of the German edition of The Voice. Now, Alice is set for wider international recognition as she prepares to release her eagerly anticipated sophomore album S.I.D.E.S. on June 17th via Mom + Pop. Today, she shared another single off the album, “Blindside,” alongside a grippingly haunting music video.
Speaking on the track, Alice wrote:
“I wrote this song with Tobias Kuhn who I previously wrote ‘Trouble in Paradise’ with on MINT. It was a joy working with him, his energy in the studio is always incredible and uplifting. We both had so much fun creating this. ‘Blindside’ is probably one of my favorite songs on this album. It’s so earnest and dark but at the same time so fun and uplifting to listen to. It mixes such a serious topic with such a fun feeling, something I love doing when writing songs.”
Continuing on the song’s music video, she wrote:
“I worked with Sander Houtkruijer on this video. He and I both have a soft spot for dark and strange videos. I showed him the song about a year ago and asked if I ever did a video to it, if he’d like to do it. Luckily he liked the song and here we are a year later.
We sat down and talked about the idea behind the song. I explained to him that I had felt inferior to someone I had spent a lot of time working with in the past. I never felt like I was treated with the same respect I had offered, and that I was constantly being given ultimatums.
We came up with two characters whose relationship to each other is very complicated and perhaps incomprehensible to the outside. It displays a very dark and dominating feeling that overshadows the love they have for each other. We wanted to then make the characters quite obscure and add a little bit of an Ingmar Bergman aesthetic.”
As also indicated by its recent tracks “Same Team” (which was just added to the SiriusXM Alt Nation rotation), “Vertigo,” “Hero,” and “Island,” the S.I.D.E.S. album is a bold evolution from the style Alice presented on the MINT album. Sonically, it’s darker, drawing on angsty modern pop, alt-rock and other more abrasive sounds, while its themes are deeper and more introspective but with an undercurrent of hope. There’s no mistaking the power of Alice’s voice, but now there’s undoubtedly a heightened passion and attitude to her superlative delivery. Alice co-produced and co-wrote all fifteen songs that feature on the album. Other high profile collaborators include Koz(Dua Lipa), Jonny Coffer (Beyoncé, Ellie Goulding), and Jennifer Decilveo (Anne-Marie, Andra Day).
Alice adds, “The last two years have been challenging for everyone in some way or another. Friends and family were lost, restrictions were enforced for the first time since I’ve been alive, and mental strength had been tested to its limit. S.I.D.E.S. tells my story of how I experienced these past years. It’s a summary of the ups and many downs, the psychological challenges I faced, and somehow realizing that there will always be another side to the story-the question is just how and when do you get there.”
Expect Alice Merton to share more sides to her story by sharing further singles ahead of the album’s release.
