At face value, it’s hard to glean anything at all from ives. – apart from the fact that she makes brilliant, eldritch pop music. Her social pages are squeaky clean, there’s not a bio in sight.
She recently released her ROMANTIC EP, the first peep we’ve heard from ives. since a string of very well-received singles in 2016/2017. It’s shrouded in obscurity and no small amount of mystery. But sometimes a good set of four songs is all you really need.
It’s time for you to meet ives., the New Zealand-based songwriter producing a wonderfully strange breed of pop music.
The EP opens with All Night Long – also the only single released ahead of ROMANTIC. It sets the mood for a series of songs that strut slightly off-centre, as if each note is being pitch-bent by some unseen magnetic force. Each hook stretches into unexpected places while cool, often minimal instrumentals bubble underneath.
Indeed this is where most of ROMANTIC sits; a grey area somewhere close to classic pop composition, twisted in creative and chaotic directions. There’s a little Billie Eilish in the whispered, shadowy vocals – especially when they stretch to falsetto in the intro to Love on You.
ROMANTIC was recorded in part at Red Bull Music Studios in Auckland, a space we have to thank for a number of groundbreaking New Zealand releases such as JessB’s 2019 EP New Views and Avantdale Bowling Club’s self-titled debut album in 2018.
While history tells us we may not hear a peep from ives. for another few years, rest assured that the ROMANTIC EP is more than enough to tide you over.
ROMANTIC is out now.
