Few artists enter the arena with a trio of singles as impressive as those of Talitha Ferri’s. The ever-reliable Gold Flake Paint first introduced us to her back in February when they premiered her debut single ‘Home’. The Copenhagen-based songwriter has since gone on to release ‘The Sadness Lasts Forever’ and now ‘Porcelain’. The latter finds Ferri riffing on feelings of guilt that often accompany depression over resplendent guitar and writhing strings. That moment under depression’s dark cloud when you look at lives much worse off than your own and feel unworthy of the sadness that rests on your stomach. It’s something Soccer Mommy wrestled with on her recent album ‘Color Theory’, to all else’s intents and purposes she was living out her childhood dreams on the road and yet inexplicably an unspoken darkness prevailed within.
Like her contemporaries, Ferri sings in similarly unvarnished terms, “Got it so damn good that it hurts / and I should feel much better / but I don’t feel much better” she regrets in a dejected, mournful tone. The arrival of wrenching strings transports us to more visceral territory as Ferri matches the sharp yank of the violin bow with words no less cutting, “I’m standing here with blood in my mouth / trying to keep from spitting it out”. In expressing her feelings so vividly, she gives legitimacy to your own feelings, resulting in the track representing a two-way exchange rather than the simple portrayal of one’s own experiences. Creating a space where others can enter on a level-playing field and work through struggles of their own is not an easy craft to master, yet Ferri manages it with ease. Laura Marling’s ‘Song For Our Daughter’ has provided the soundtrack to my lockdown so far and I’m sure that when Talitha Ferri’s debut full-length ‘Get Well Soon’ arrives on May 01 it will provide a similar comfort, just when we need it most.
‘Porcelain’ is out now on soulpod collective
Balloon machine 