Bathe Alone’s Bailey Crone dives into the fantastically cathartic depths of her new double EP ‘Fall With the Lights Down,’ an achingly visceral dream pop report constructed off reminiscence and nostalgia, breathtaking soundscapes and soul-stirring singing.

‘Fall With the Lights Down (Louise)’ – Bathe Alone

I’m singing about all these recollections that I simply wish to relive and exist in once more. I wish to be with these individuals in these locations once more. It’s a romanticized longing.

The fantastic factor about collages is that you just don’t want to begin in anybody place.

As long as you’re taking in each the massive image and its particular person elements, you’re positive to come back away with a little bit of inspiration and hopefully some understanding of the artist’s intent.

Bathe Alone’s new report isn’t deliberately structured as a collage, however to an important extent, it capabilities as one: As a result of regardless of which tune you begin with, you’re inevitably certain to come back away with the identical sense of wonderment and nostalgia. A fantastically cathartic daydream, Fall With the Lights Down is a lush, atmospheric, and ethereal reverie constructed off reminiscence and connections previous and current. It’s an achingly, intimately human report plunging in to the artist’s very personal historical past – from these she by no means knew who got here earlier than her, to her personal bygone harmless youth, to the particular person she’s nonetheless changing into.

Photos from the ’70s
Sick of watching dad’s TV
It’s over how I miss it
Recollections from my child head

Holdin on tight
Oh I dream of being right here
excessive the place I see metropolis lights
Hills of my life
Oh I can see over
Missionary Ridge at evening

– “Missionary Ridge,” Bathe Alone

Absolutely launched August 4, 2023 through Nettwerk Music Group, Fall With the Lights Down is a surprising sophomore effort (if we are able to name it that) from Atlanta’s Bathe Alone. Comprised of two EPs – the six-track Louise, which launched in October 2020, and the five-track Velma, which is newly out now – the follow-up to 2021’s debut album Final Appears to be like continues within the footsteps of its predecessor, delivering an atmospheric dream pop expertise that’s as breathtakingly intimate and spiritually energizing because it will get.

It’s a charming and cathartic best-foot-forward for Bathe Alone’s Bailey Crone, the Atlanta-based multi-instrumentalist who launched her undertaking solely two years in the past, and has been working carefully with producer Damon Moon (Curtis Harding, Lunar Trip & extra) ever since.

Whereas Final Appears to be like set a agency basis of lush, sweeping, and stirring indie rock and pop brimming with each stress and launch, Fall With the Lights Down‘s songs aren’t afraid of swimming with out a life jacket – regardless of what its two cowl arts, that includes Crone’s great-grandparents (named Velma and Louise, similar to the respective EPs), would recommend!

“This report can be a assortment of recollections,” Bailey Crone tells Atwood Journal. “Good and unhealthy ones. I used to be actually scuffling with my psychological well being once I wrote the final report, Final Appears to be like. I had lastly gotten to a spot the place I felt like I used to be over the hill, and I had management again in my life. Final Appears to be like was such a heavy report to me, and I needed to maintain that authenticity going, however I additionally needed to incorporate different issues I used to be processing too that weren’t all the time so heavy. Issues like friendships and nostalgic recollections. It’s only a continuation of my story and life and what I’m processing on the time.”

“Sonically, this report is de facto thrilling to me, too. Damon and I actually hit some type of groove collectively within the studio. We have been taking extra time on songs, and actually saying sure to experimentation. There’s loads of conventional devices like guitar and drums, however Damon was all the time in search of a method to make it sound completely different or attention-grabbing. There’s a lot glitter taking place and issues that sound musical that weren’t musical in any respect after we recorded them. We messed round with taking area recordings and transferring across the harmonics on this program Melodyne, and making our personal synth patches.”

“So like, what you suppose is a synth in ‘Awfully Quiet,’ is definitely a sound impact of an previous 1960’s present used for bat echolocation. Or a bunch of sounds in ‘Childhood’ are creaky metallic music stands grinding in opposition to a splash cymbal, but it surely completely seems like a synth after we tuned it to double the acoustic guitar’s melody. That kind of experimentation simply stored working and sounding good, and albeit, we simply stored wonderful ourselves, so that actually impressed us to maintain chasing these loopy concepts and push the bounds of what we’d achieved in sound design.”

For Crone, this report represents an simple evolution in who she is as an artist and what Bathe Alone is changing into as a undertaking.

“Damon and I make a very good group as a result of I really feel like I actually care about cohesion inside a report, and Damon actually cares about shade in a report,” she displays. “These issues can technically be opposites. However in some way, I really feel just like the sound of Bathe Alone is each these issues. This report actually proved that. It’s a much bigger, grander model of what we did earlier than.”

“It’s gotten so open-minded sonically, however there’s a lot glue taking place that all of it suits collectively to me. It’s like, yea we took two items of metallic and rubbed them in opposition to one another, which is type of horrific and ugly and harking back to a rusty playground, however we tuned the harmonics round and made it a synth patch that’s enjoying this melody alongside an acoustic guitar. That’s what I imply by shade, but additionally cohesion. That’s what I like about writing with Damon, and this report as a complete, is actually a time capsule of us taking these dangers.”

Some days are awfully quiet
You watch for evening to inform your goals about it
They cease to ask when you’re alright – right?

Charcoal, grass and ciders
You went one time and now it’s each different
They cease to ask when you’re alright -right?

Dwelling, feeling low, feel at residence
Filling up and flying low
Flying residence, facing up
Dealing with residence, you really feel rather a lot
Really feel alone
Feeling in every single place you go
Thought I instructed ya
However guess I used to be awfully quiet

It’s a much bigger, grander model of what we did earlier than. It’s gotten so open-minded sonically, however there’s a lot glue taking place that all of it suits collectively to me.

As visceral as it’s cerebral, Fall With The Lights Down is a pastiche of Crone’s previous and current – a melting pot of private reflections and candid observations, letters to family members and yearnings for what as soon as was, and might by no means be once more. She affectionately calls it “a sonic expression of nostalgic longing.”

“So, I had simply completed writing the primary report, Final Appears to be like, and I really feel like my writing model undoubtedly modified going into the subsequent report,” Crone explains. “Primarily as a result of I had a bunch of publicity to the synths that Damon had simply laying round throughout his studio. And synths weren’t one thing I usually wrote with. I really actively prevented them as a result of I simply didn’t get it. I solely actually had publicity to VSTs and digital synths and obtained the impression they have been type of boring and off and uninspiring. So I simply dismissed them as an instrument altogether, and gravitated in direction of devices I felt I may very well be extra expressive on, like drums and guitar.”

“However after seeing the world of classic synths from Damon, and methods to use them in preparations and methods to make them lush and creamy, and the way they don’t must be this obnoxious factor I assumed they have been, I grew to become so stoked to jot down with them. I needed to get some actual ones I might put in my lap and hook as much as my guitar pedals and make soundscapes with. I used to be obsessed.”

“So once I look again on this report I really hear my newfound love for synths and the invention course of unfolding in actual time. I hear Childhood and I hear my Casio CT-310 I had simply purchased at a pawn store. I hear 4u and listen to how I stored my first efficiency of the pitch bend on my Roland JX-3P. I hear the flute solo in Waste It and might bear in mind sweating over the keyboard as I’m making an attempt to get this delay pedal to self-oscillate in simply the correct means. My imaginative and prescient for writing the report was considered one of discovery and fascination. I really feel like by the tip of it, the imaginative and prescient was just about the identical, I needed to maintain writing with these new toys and simply uncover all of the worlds they may make. It’s nonetheless that method to today.”

Crone describes Fall With The Lights Down as a “reminiscence mood-setter.”

The album’s title comes from a lyric on the final tune, “4u,” whose glistening, emotive synth pads show to be totally enveloping and intoxicating – a becoming mirror for Crone’s intense lyrics.

“That complete tune is about somebody who died younger, and it compares life to a film all of us obtained into totally free,” she says. “However this particular person by no means obtained to see how their film ended. ‘Fall With the Lights Down’ was my means of claiming I hope that once they left, they didn’t see it occur. I hope it was painless.”

Launched slowly and in piecemeal all through the previous 12 months, Fall With The Lights Down can be devoted to Crone’s two great-grandmothers, whose footage adorn both aspect of the report’s cowl.

“Velma and Louise have been their names. I needed to ask my mother what their names have been as a result of I really by no means met them,” Crone explains. “I’ve an advanced relationship with the thought of household and what makes somebody your loved ones. Each of my mother and father are adopted, and I’ve all the time questioned what my organic grandparents are like. I’ve solely met considered one of them, however the concept that they’re on the market someplace is daunting. It’s like this black field that I don’t know what’s inside.”

“I really feel unusually comparable once I take a look at these images of my adoptive great-grandparents. I by no means met them, so I’m wondering what they’d have been like. I really feel a way of longing once I take a look at them. As a result of I like my very own grandparents a lot, and I do know I’d have cherished them too. Their presence type of encapsulates the theme of the report to me: I’m singing about all these recollections that I simply wish to relive and exist in once more. I wish to be with these individuals in these locations once more. It’s a romanticized longing. Perhaps that’s what nostalgia is to me. Whether or not I met them or not, I’ve nostalgia for them.”

The double-EP’s slow-and-steady launch schedule might need meant followers have been ready longer for the total factor, but it surely allow Crone to dedicate ample time to just about each one of many report’s eleven songs.

And really, that is an all-hits, no misses dream pop expertise. Highlights from the primary EP Louise embrace “A long time & Goals” and “Waste It,” each of which mix hazy shoegaze with tempered nuance and a fragile grace that places emphasis on the artist’s aware vocal efficiency and phrase selection.

Louise‘s final observe “Animals & Bushes” is an particularly transferring marriage of substance and sound, with a robust message to save lots of the environment and shield Earth’s wildlife. “Bathe Alone glows with a singular sonic and emotional radiance as she sings about animal rights and deforestation (fairly actually, animals and timber),” Atwood Journal wrote in a premiere printed final 12 months. “Her supply is each vital and charming; she sings with a dreamy, deeply heartfelt resonance: “Tear down their properties, looking for cash, you attempt to discover god, they can’t discover household.”

Velma is equally enchanting, with the cinematic “In Your Wake” making a multisensory setting filled with fiery synths, hovering and smoldering guitars, propulsive, churning drums, and vibrant vocals that carry the observe’s a number of layers of instrumentation collectively.

It’s a favourite for Crone as properly. “I genuinely like completely different ones for various causes, however ‘In Your Wake’ is a particular standout for me. That one makes me really feel good. I really feel empowered and stoked to jot down music once more at any time when I hear it. Plus, Damon shredded some guitar in that one on the finish, and let me let you know, he was having the time of his life. That reminiscence all the time makes me smile.”

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Velma’s closing single was the refined, spellbinding seduction “Missionary Ridge,” a radiant reckoning via reminiscence lane that mixes turbulent, deep-diving lyrics right into a soothing serenade that finally breaks out right into a no-holds-barred guitar solo.

“That is considered one of my favourite songs on the report,” Crone smiles. “It’s all complete nostalgia, taking me again to my grandparent’s home in Chattanooga. A few of my recollections rising up there have been of such mundane issues, however as I get older, I’ve realized how necessary these recollections are. My hope with this tune was to pay tribute to that place and people occasions that really feel so far-off now. I labored with some shut pals, Nic Huey and Paula Harding, to create a video that type of captures the sensation of wanting again on these recollections as an grownup.”

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Velma can be residence to a few of Bathe Alone’s favourite lyrics – part of the songwriting course of Crone feels notably strongly about.

“The lyrics must imply one thing to me, or I really feel disingenuous,” she admits. “I get reminded of how I felt once I wrote these songs each time I hear them. Which is usually a good feeling or really be an actual bummer typically. It’s like flipping to a web page of your diary from a very unhealthy day.”

“I’d say my favourite lyrics are from the tune, ‘4u.’ It was a tough one to jot down but additionally so cathartic. Being weak doesn’t come naturally to me, however I actually really feel like these lyrics are so genuine to how I used to be feeling that it made processing that grief a little bit simpler within the second. I’m so glad I did that. That tune is so essential to me.”

Imagined to die previous, but what are you able to do
Don’t depart earlier than the film ends
’trigger it ends glad

Hope you discover
Heaven on Earth on the skin..

Can’t keep right here, forever younger
It received’t finish honest
‘Trigger you bought on this film totally free

Hope you discover
Heaven on Earth on the skin…
For you, would you fall,
Would you fall with the lights down?

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Dreamy escape that it’s, Fall With the Lights Down conveys Bathe Alone’s sturdy feelings round reminiscence, time, and the individuals and locations that form us.

That simple fact is finally what makes this set of songs so highly effective – and whereas this author would argue that it actually doesn’t matter what order you take heed to them, the best way this double EP is designed (beginning with Louise and “Some Issues By no means Change,” and ending with Velma and “4u”) proves notably enchanting, as Bathe Alone take us on a soul-stirring sonic and emotional rollercoaster of cathartic highs, lows, and in-betweens.

So far as takeaways are involved, Crone is fast to supply the identical recommendation she realized over the course of making this report: “Make artwork and discover, discover, discover!” she shares. “Observe the rabbit holes, reverse it, slap some reverb on it, report it. The worlds that music makes is all in our heads.”

Expertise the total report through our under stream, and peek inside Bathe Alone’s Fall With the Lights Down with Atwood Journal as Bailey Crone goes track-by-track via the music and lyrics of her double EP!

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‘Fall With the Lights Down (Velma)’ – Bathe Alone

:: Inside Fall With the Lights Down ::

Louise

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Some Issues By no means Change

I principally lined the tune Final Appears to be like from the earlier report. However made it a little bit lo-fi interlude model. I added the lyrics “some issues by no means change” on the finish although, as a result of I really feel like I’m nonetheless processing and fascinated about it, and possibly all the time shall be.

A long time & Goals

I stunned my finest buddy Jasmine by taking her 7 hours away to see a Seaside Home live performance for her birthday. She had no concept the place we have been going that complete time till we obtained there. It was her favourite band, and he or she had by no means seen them earlier than. It’s considered one of my favourite recollections. I obtained residence and tried to jot down a Seaside Home impressed tune about all of it. I like all of the upbeats on the flute synth, I used to be actually making an attempt to channel one thing from Teen Dream. This tune is for her. That’s her within the music video with me too.

Waste It

This one is a few completely different friendship I had that turned bitter. Not all recollections are good. This was the primary time I felt like I referred to as somebody out in a tune for being a foul buddy. It’s fairly obscure on function, however I do know precisely what it’s about.

As soon as Extra

That is about that very same buddy. They have been a little bit of a self-sabotager, and it was changing into a repeat downside for them. As I’ve gotten older I’ve gotten much less tolerant of being round that vitality. I simply know they’ll do it once more, or as soon as extra, if you’ll.

Childhood

My childhood canine died once I was in 4th grade. I didn’t actually take into consideration the idea of demise earlier than that. I knew what demise was, however wasn’t actively pondering I’d lose my canine in the future. This tune is extra from the angle of me as an grownup wanting again at that. I really feel like I grew to become hyper-aware of the idea of loss after that with lyrics like “I’d from then on be afraid”. I view that point because the milestone in my life the place I went from ignorance is bliss, to dreading the inevitable.

Animals & Bushes

I’m actually amazed at how this tune took place. It’s freakish. It shouldn’t have occurred like this. However principally, I wrote one other tune referred to as Animals & Bushes. It was a bit extra pushed with chugging guitars and was means sooner paced. We stored that tune for fairly some time as we continued with the report. Finally, Damon and I spotted that that tune simply didn’t match. It was too completely different, and albeit I simply didn’t take care of it anymore. I instructed Damon I’d simply re-do the tune and went residence and primarily lined my very own tune. I used the identical lyrics, however the vibe was completely different, and had completely different chords. Within the studio the subsequent day, we in some way realized that this new tune was in the very same key because the previous one and tempo because the previous one. I used to be facepalming. However then Damon determined to reverse the entire tune and layer it into the brand new cowl model. It suits completely as this soundscape within the background that comes and goes. So for the brand new model of Animals & Bushes, all the reversed audio is the complete previous model. I nonetheless don’t understand how that occurred. The universe is bizarre.

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Velma

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In Your Wake

I used to be writing about eager to take management of my life. Generally it feels just like the universe has different plans. However there’s all the time been a battle in me that wishes to stand up and do one thing about it. After I sing about “wake” to me it means somebody’s wrath or willpower or vitality. It’s type of an indignant feeling to me. It’s like my very own fireplace that’s laborious to explain. It may be empowering to vary your individual life and turn out to be tremendous cussed about it.

Missionary Ridge

I used to be reminiscing about my grandparent’s home in Chattanooga, Tennessee. That place has this magic to me. I, after all am seeing that place via the rose-colored lenses of a kid, however nonetheless, being in Chattanooga makes me really feel secure and at residence. The view of the town lights from up on the ridge at evening is actually one thing.

Awfully Quiet

I’ve usually been referred to as “the lady who all the time smiles” rising up. I’m fairly glad and all the time making an attempt to make individuals chuckle. However on the similar time, I’ve had my very own troubles and trauma in life that I’m continually processing behind the scenes. I simply don’t wish to burden individuals with it. Psychological well being is a very necessary factor to me, and typically the individuals in your life which might be the happiest are literally simply one of the best at hiding or compartmentalizing their trauma. I really feel like once I began releasing songs, I used to be being actually sincere and writing about my losses and griefs and really darkish stuff. However I additionally discovered that folks couldn’t perceive the phrases as a result of I assume I don’t pronounce once I sing. In a means, realizing that folks can’t perceive me is liberating, it’s like I can say no matter I would like and have this cathartic technique of that’s sincere and weak and like remedy. However alternatively, what if I would like individuals to grasp me? What if I’m making an attempt to say one thing or ask for assist, and no one can perceive me? This tune is only a commentary on that complete idea. It sucks to really feel unseen. There’s a component the place I’m mumbling all these actual and darkish ideas on function. I’m mocking myself and my very own singing model right here. After which the hook is, “thought I instructed ya, however guess I used to be awfully quiet”. It’s like, my true sincere ideas are all on the market for the taking. However possibly I simply mentioned it too smooth.

Blue Days

This one talks extra about psychological well being. The entire first report actually was about that. However it’s very nice to have some good days. On the finish, I had opened my window to report no matter was taking place outdoors. My neighbor’s child was enjoying so loudly and screaming. And the birds have been all out and about. Damon and I had additionally sampled and altered the notes round to all these previous symphonic recordings. That tune is so cinematic and experimental, and I’m so happy with it. However I do have loads of emotions remembering the place I used to be once I wrote it. It’s laborious to revisit, however I’m grateful music is such an unbelievable outlet.

4u

So far as songs that imply essentially the most to me personally, I feel that is the one I’d save from a burning constructing. I actually really feel like that is the artwork I’m meant to make.

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