Delivering on a recent teaser, TOPS frontperson Jane Penny has officially announced the details of her debut solo release, alongside first single "Messages."
The Surfacing EP arrives April 5 via Luminelle Recordings. It was written, recorded and produced between Berlin and Montreal by Penny while she was caring for her bedridden then-partner, musician Adam Byczkowski (Better Person), while they both coped with the effects of Long COVID. Neighbour and long-time collaborator Patrick Holland mixed the project and provided additional production.
“This EP comes out of a period of darkness, and a point of weakness, but I feel responsible to leave listeners with a certain level of resilience,” Penny said in a release. “As an artist, it’s my job to show people that it’s freeing to explore some of these feelings, but I always want to leave them with a ray of light, an escape hatch, because then I’m reminded of it, too.”
Of the gleamingly ominous lead single, she added, "It’s a pop song about getting notifications from everyone except the one person you want to hear from, which was happening to me at the time. The opening sample — ‘There is a message for you’ — is a strange message that the credit card machines in Montreal cabs make.”
Watch the Otium-directed, Meshes of the Afternoon-inspired "Messages" video below.
Surfacing:
1. Darkness Can Wait for a Night
2. Messages
3. Wear You Out
4. Stream
5. Artificial Genuine
6. Beautiful Ordinary
7. Accelerate Slowly
