Today, Toronto based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist GRAE shares her new single “Forget You,” which is lifted off her debut LPWhiplash out April 15. The sentimental new effort was produced by her long-time collaborator Connor Seidel and co-written with Willa Milner.
In less than three minutes, GRAE tells a tale of a romantic relationship that no longer serves her best interest. “Forget You” is hoisted by her mesmeric vocals, breezy alt-pop melodies, gentle drum beats, and sophisticated lyricism. GRAE’s vocal delivery is reposeful, as it gently weaves between the track’s lulling arrangements and overall melancholic atmosphere. With lyrics, Damn I wish I had amnesia, I’d heal real quick / Damn I wish I didn’t need ya, you make me sick, GRAE hopes to move past a fractured relationship that has proven to do more harm than good despite any fleeting moments of satisfaction.
GRAE shares this about the song,
“‘Forget You’ was written when I finally decided to let go of a relationship I romanticized. This person no longer served me, yet I still found myself caught up in the nostalgia of it all, looking back on our time spent together with rose-coloured glasses. Whenever I tried to move on, I still thought about them. We always found our way back to each other and it never ended well. They weren’t good for me and had bad habits. I made their issues my own, tried to fix them, tried to be their saviour. They held me back from pursuing new relationships and exploring new things. This song was therapeutic and emotional for me to write. A release of all these emotions I had been feeling for years. I felt sad writing it because as much as I knew I had to let them go, a part of me didn’t want to, but this song is goodbye to them and our failed attempt at love.”
At the start of 2022, GRAE shared her single “Room In The Desert.” With this previous effort, GRAEdoes what she does best and that’s mix wistfulness with modern malaise. Stemming from a period of despondency and fluctuation, the development of “Room In The Desert” derived from GRAE channeling creativity from the Cocteau Twins’ 1990 track “Cherry-coloured Funk.” When it came to the production for this track, GRAE set out to relocate from her past sonic tendencies. The impact behind the band’s enigmatic lyrics led to GRAE crafting her own sonically trippy endeavour where people could find their own meaning behind her song’s ambiguous undertaking. The track was accompanied by the Gemma Warren-directed music video and served as a hallucinatory fantasy with desert creatures such as a snake, tarantula, and Amazon parrot appearing in the clip.
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Dissecting her past to envision her future, GRAE is making new-wave pop music that’s both nostalgic and boundary-breaking. She crafts a hazy pop world filled with spacious vocals, buoyant production, and deeply personal lyrics. It’s both starkly intimate and boldly ambitious – the sort of music that can soundtrack a bedroom hangout just as easily as it can a venue of thousands.
GRAE has been writing music since the age of 10. After her mother passed away when she was young, she and her father used music as a way to bond. He bought a record player and the pair would listen to a new vinyl every day, broadening her musical horizons. When the vinyl player was silent, ‘80s music channels often flickered in the background.
GRAE’s music sees her dig through the musical inspirations of her upbringing and reimagine them through a new lens, coloured by 23 years of experience. Her influences are deeply rooted in ‘80s new wave from The Cure to Joy Division but she’s also studied the singer/songwriter masters like Rodriguez. The result is a collision of electrifying atmosphere and lyrical depth.
Initially wanting to make folk-tinged music, her sonic world opened up as she began to collaborate with producers. Her 2019 debut “New Girl” paired her alluring vocals with dark and winding hip-hop-inspired beats. It put her on the map, drawing acclaim for Complex and Wonderland but it left her wondering, “Who am I inspired by?”
2020’sPermanent Maniac EPanswered the question for her. The Cure are directly referenced twice on the EP. They’re name-checked on “2725” while “Just Like Heaven” is name-dropped on her love letter to frontman Robert Smith, “Permanent Maniac.” She was pulled back to her musical education in that house with her dad, falling in love with the detouring and hazy sounds of The Cure.
“Permanent Maniac” was named in Billboard’s ‘Top 30 Pop Songs of the Year’ while the EP has garnered over 5 million streams to date. Meanwhile, she’s featured on Spotify’s “indie pop & chill”and “Outliers” and been named Apple Music Canada’s “Artist of the Week.” Both “Permanent Maniac” and “Soft” reached the Top 40 of Canadian Alternative Radio while the latter reacher #4 on CBC Top 20.
With over 15 million streams to her name, GRAE is one of the fastest-rising names in alt-pop. She has 120,000 followers on TikTok and 45,000 on Instagram while her music has been heard on “Nancy Drew” (CW), “The Bold Type” (Freeform), and “Virgin River” (Netflix). She’s finding ears all across the planet and she’s doing it all on her own terms, chasing the music that makes her feel something even if it terrifies her.
